<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Miraculous Ladybug Rewrite by ZiKyDoesThings</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27109879">Miraculous Ladybug Rewrite</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZiKyDoesThings/pseuds/ZiKyDoesThings'>ZiKyDoesThings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disabled Character(s), Felix and Adrien aren't cousins, Felix and Adrien aren't related, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth Has No Rights, I'm not going with Canon Felix because he's a jerk, Marinette and Adrien didn't even meet each other before Hawkmoth started attacking, Marinette and Bridgette aren't related</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:41:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,172</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27109879</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZiKyDoesThings/pseuds/ZiKyDoesThings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I'd seen some people attempt to rewrite this show before, so I figured I'd give it a try myself.<br/>Unedited version is on Fanfiction.net under the same username.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir &amp; Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir &amp; Plagg, Alya Césaire &amp; Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Bridgette &amp; Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug), Juleka Couffaine &amp; Rose Lavillant, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Marinette &amp; Felix, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug &amp; Tikki, Sabine Cheng/Tom Dupain, bridgette/felix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Stoneheart Part One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If there's spaces missing between words, that's because of me copy and pasting this from the writing program I write in. It's a problem I've had before with other stories of mine.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Marinette, time to wake up! Your alarm stopped going off ten minutes ago!” Marinette hears her mom yell from the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m coming, mammon!” Marinette calls down, sleepily. She moves to run her fingers through her hair in an attempt to untangle it a bit before getting dressed, she groans after realizing that she had left her hair in pigtails before going to sleep yet again. She knows that with how tight she’d made the hair ties yesterday, along with the fact that she slept with them in, it would mean that her head would be aching in those areas for a while.*1 She takes her hair out of the pigtails, pulls the loose hairs off the hair ties, then puts them on her wrist, in case she felt the need to pull her hair back at some point during the day.</p><p> </p><p>After climbing down to the lower level of her bedroom, she opens up one of her windows and sticks her hand out to feel the temperature. Feeling that it was still only a little chilly, she started to get dressed for the school day.</p><p> </p><p>Walking over to her closet, she threw on a pale pink short sleeve with a long sleeved, black pleather jacket with red lining she’d just finished making a couple of days ago, a pair of dark wash jeans and a pair of black, slightly healed, ankle boots. After she was dressed, she climbed back up to the level her bed’s on so she could brush her hair real quick before going down for breakfast.</p><p> </p><p>Walking into the kitchen, she says “Good morning, mammon!”</p><p> </p><p>“Good morning, Marinette. Did you sleep well last night last night, or did you end up staying up all night finishing one of your projects again?” She hears her dad ask as she sits down on one of the stools by the kitchen counter.</p><p> </p><p>“I might have had a better sleep last night if I hadn’t forgotten to take my pigtails out.” Marinette says as she pours herself some cereal, using chocolate milk instead of regular. She’s intentionally ignoring the question about if she’d been working on a project. She had been, but she doesn’t want to say as much since it’s supposed to be a present for their wedding anniversary.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you excited for the new school year?” Sabine asks her daughter.</p><p> </p><p>“Kind of, but knowing my luck, Chloe will probably end up being in the same classes as me again.” Marinette says, placing the milk down.</p><p> </p><p>“If so, that would be four years in a row. Is that really possible?” Sabine asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Anything’s possible when Chloe’s involved. I wouldn’t be that surprised if she makes sure her dad has the school place us together just so she can bug me more. Lucky me.” Marinette says, the last sentence practically dripping with sarcasm.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh don’t say that. There’s always a chance for you two to be placed in different classes. I’m sure everything will turn out fine.” Sabine says as Marinette places the chocolate milk jug back onto the table, starting a chain reaction that end with flour, milk, and butter all over the table and on the floor.</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t look like I’m off to a good start, the way I see it.” Marinette says, helping her mom clean up the mess she’d made, somewhat glad that none of it had gotten on her clothes.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Tada!” Marinette hears her dad say, as he opens a box in front of her.</p><p> </p><p>“Papa, these look great!” Marinette say, looking at the macarons her dad had made for her class, a tradition they had for the beginning of every school year.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m glad you like them, sweetheart!” Tom say, closing the box back up.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re the best!” Marinette says, jumping up to wrap her arms around her dad’s neck, making her dad drop the macaron box out of surprise, only to catch it with his foot.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re the best, thanks to your design idea!” Tom says, showing off the bakery logo on the underside of the lid.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s so cool they managed to do that!” Marinette says, seeing how the symbol would either blend in with the lid or appear a golden color depending on how the light hits it.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll see you and mammon tonight!” Marinette says, grabbing the box after her dad closed it up and rushed out the door.</p><p> </p><p>Once out the door, Marinette gasps in shock after she spots an elderly man struggling to reach his cain in the middle of the road. Looking around quickly, she realizes two things.</p><p> </p><p>One. She’s the only person to notice the man, with everyone else too busy staring at their phones. She isn’t that surprised at that, with how some people seem to find their phones more important than the world around them.</p><p> </p><p>And two, there’s a car speeding right in his direction. With how fast it’s going, she knew the chances of it stopping in time were slim to none.</p><p> </p><p>Before she even realizes that she’d done it, Marinette drops her macaron box, runs out towards the man and helps him up after picking up his cain, and drags him to the side of the road he appears to have been going before he fell. The same side of the street that she’d dropped her macarons on.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you miss. Oh my, what a disaster!” The man says, noticing her macaroons.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s alright. I’m anything but a stranger to disasters.” Marinette said, bending down to quickly pick up as many of the macarons as she could before people ended up stepping on them all.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like one?” Marinette asks, holding the box out to the man, seeing that she would still have plenty of macarons left for her new class.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you.” He says, grabbing one and taking a bite. “Mmmh. Pistachio!”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry if I seem like I’m advertising, but if you want more, my parents own the bakery, right on the corner. My dad’s the one that made them.” Marinette says, pointing towards her parent’s bakery.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.” He says, as Marinette heard the school bell go off.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh crap, I’m late!” Marinette says, hurriedly getting up and running across the street.</p><p> </p><p>“How is it that I live right across the street, yet I’m always late to school?!” Marinette asked herself, running up the steps and into the school entrance.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>After hearing the bell above the door go off, Tom moves to the front of the shop, intending to help whatever potential costumer had just walked into the shop. He’s greeted with the site of someone he hadn’t seen in a long time.</p><p> </p><p>“Please tell me that you’re just hear to buy something.” Tom says to the man.</p><p> </p><p>“I wish that’s all I was here for.” the man responds.</p><p> </p><p>“You going to give Sabine and I back the ones we had, or are you wanting to give one to Marinette instead?”</p><p> </p><p>“Your daughter. After all, the daughter of XīnghóngandBuffle Gardien is likely to make an excellent match for Tikki.” the man says, holding out a box to Tom.</p><p> </p><p>“Who will she be against?”</p><p> </p><p>“The butterfly. I fear it may be the same one you were friends with all those years ago.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll put the box somewhere in her room she’s likely to find it, but this doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Tom says, taking the box before heading up to his daughter’s room, knowing that he’ll have to warn Sabine about the man’s arrival, preferably sometime before Marinette put on the Ladybug miraculous for the first time.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” She hears an oh, so familiar voice say.</p><p> </p><p>“I knew it.” Marinette mutters as she hears the teacher, who according to the name on the board was Miss Bustier, ask Nino if he could sit in the front of the class.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s my seat.” Chloe tells Marinette, as she slams her hand on the table in front of the black-haired girl.</p><p> </p><p>“Chloe, I’ve always sat in this spot of the classroom. You of all people should know this.” Marinette says.</p><p> </p><p>“Not anymore! New school and new year, so that means new seats!” Marinette hears Sabrina, the glasses wearing red head that has always followed Chloe around, say as she sat in the empty spot next to Marinette and start trying to pushing her out of her spot with her feet.</p><p> </p><p>“Why don’t you just go down there and sit next to that new girl instead? A friend of mine is starting in this school this year and I’m saving this spot for him.” Chloe says, grabbing Marinette by an arm and pulling her out, before swiping Marinette’s stuff off the table before pointing at the spot in front of where Marinette had previously been sitting.</p><p> </p><p>“Adrien’s going to be coming to class this year. That’s going to be his seat,” Chloe says, pointing to the empt seat next to Nino, “So it only makes sense that this is going to be my seat. Get it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Any friend of yours is probably rude like you too.” Marinette says, bending down to pick up her books and folders. She had no idea who Adrien was, nor did she care.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, who died and made you Queen of Seating?” She hears. Looking up, Marinette sees a dark skinned girl, with wavy dark brown hair that faded to red, wearing a red and orange plaid button down, jeans, and glasses.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, look, Sabrina. It appears as if we’ve got ourselves a do-gooder in our class this year!” Chloe says, laughing. “What are you gonna do? Shoot laser beams at me out of those glasses of yours?”</p><p> </p><p>“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The brown and red haired girl says, bending down to help Marinette pick up her stuff.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, girl.” The girl says, dragging Marinette to where she was sitting.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry!” Marinette calls to the teacher when she trips, dropping and breaking all but two of the macarons.</p><p> </p><p>“Chill out, girl! It’s not that big of a deal.” The new girl says, helping Marinette quickly pick up the macarons.</p><p> </p><p>“I really wish I could handle Chloe the way you do.” Marinette admitted, sitting down as the teacher checked to make sure all of the students found a place to sit.</p><p> </p><p>“You mean the way Majestia does it.” The red head says, pulling a comic out of her backpack. Marinette briefly notices a pink, purple, and blue stripped pin attached to the bag strap.</p><p> </p><p>“Majestia says that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for the good people to do nothing.” The girl says, pointing to the image of a blonde, female on the comic’s cover. “That girl over there is evil and people like us are good, so we shouldn’t let her get away with it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, that’s easier said than done. She loves making my life miserable and her father’s been the mayor for as long as I can remember.”<br/><br/>“She makes your life miserable because you let her do that, girl! You just need to find your confidence! Who cares if her dad is the mayor?”</p><p> </p><p>“Pretty much everyone.” Marinette says, watching as the last two macarons slid around in the open box as she moved it.</p><p> </p><p>“Here. You can borrow this. Who knows, it might give you some ideas.” the girl says, sliding the comic over to Marinette. “But make sure you give it back to me when you’re done.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m Marinette.” She says, grabbing one of the two macarons and handing them to the girl.</p><p><br/>“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Marinette. I’m Alya.” The new girl, Alya, says, taking the offered macaroon.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Adrien, please! Reconsider this! You know what your father wants for you!” Adrien hears Nathalie yell out the window of the car as he runs towards the high school.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t care! It’s my life and I’m sick of being told what to do all the time, so I’m going to start taking more control over it!” Adrien yells as he stops in front of the school, noticing that an elderly man had fallen and was reaching for his cane.</p><p> </p><p>Adrien looks between the school doors and the man, deciding between helping the man with his cain or walking through the school doors and gaining a bit of freedom from his father, before making up his mind.</p><p> </p><p>“Right now, all I want is to go to school like everyone else instead of spending all day at home. I don’t see what’s so wrong about that.” Adrien says as he helps the man up.</p><p> </p><p>“Please don’t tell my father about me trying to do this.” Adrien says, looking up to see that Nathalie and his bodyguard were standing in front of the school steps to block him from walking inside, before going to sit in the back seat of the car.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll only tell him if he asks me about this specifically. Otherwise, I’m not going to lie to him. You should know how I feel about lying to your father by now, Adrien.” Natalie says, climbing into the passenger seat before the car drives off.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>Marinette isn’t sure when, but at some point she’d tuned out what was going on in the class around her in favor of watching two adults confronting a blond teen outside of the school. She finds that she can’t help but wonder who that boy is, not being able to recognize him. Didn’t really help that she couldn’t see the faces of either the boy or the two adults, seeing how they were blocking him from coming inside the building while he was bending down to do something.</p><p> </p><p>Her thoughts are brought back to the class when she hears Ivan yell “KIIMM!!”, startling her enough to make her turn to face where she knew the bigger boy was.</p><p> </p><p>“What on Earth is going on?!” Miss Bustier exclaims as the bell rings, marking the end of homeroom.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s Kim! I’m gonna get you for saying that!” Kim says, before punching Kim in the eye.</p><p> </p><p>“You, principal’s office, now! I don’t appreciate violence in my classroom!” Miss Bustier says, pointing towards Ivan and the classroom door.</p><p> </p><p>“Now that problem is handled for now, if you have gym, Mr. D’Argencourt is expecting you in the courtyard by the school entrance. For everyone else, head to the library. The entrance is by the bathrooms on the first floor. It shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Miss Bustier says as the students start putting their stuff away for the next class. Marinette looks out the window just in time to see the blond teen climb into the car before it drove away. She hopes that those two aren’t a danger to the boy.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Ah!” Marinette yells, jumping in shock as she feels everything around her shake. Curious about what’s going on, she looks to the muted TV that’s showing the local news in the school’s library. She has a hard time believing what she’s seeing. There’s a giant stone-like monster running around Paris.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on!” Alya yells, grabbing Marinette’s hand and pulling her towards the library exit.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to stay here for a bit before heading home. I don’t live far from here.” Marinette says, pulling her hand out of Alya’s grasp.</p><p> </p><p>“Girl, you really need a confidence boost.” Alya says, seeing the scared look on Marinette’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“This has nothing to do with confidence. This is just me not wanting to risk getting hurt by that stone thing.” Marinette says, defensively.</p><p> </p><p>“KIIIIIM!!!” They hear the stone creature yell.</p><p> </p><p>“Alya, that was Ivan’s voice!”</p><p> </p><p>“Who’s Ivan again?” Alya asks, confused, reminding Marinette that this was the girl’s first day at the school.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s the one Miss Bustier sent to see Principle Damocles earlier!” Marinette says, running to the window.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh crap!” Alya says, looking out the window. “He’s been turned into a supervillain! GPS, check. Battery, check. Sorry about this girl, but I’ve got to go!”</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?!” Marinette asks, scared for Alya’s safety as she runs towards the library door again.</p><p> </p><p>“If there’s a supervillain, then a superhero is bound to show up eventually! I was born too late to catch any footage of the previous group, so there’s no way I’m missing this!” Alya says pausing just long enough to tell Marinette that before leaving the room.</p><p> </p><p>Looking back at the TV screen, Marinette saw Ivan-Turned-Stone-Monster pick up a car and throw it at the camera, making Marinette wince when the footage cut out.</p><p> </p><p>She decided to wait a few more minutes before running home to her family’s bakery across the street. A part of her wondered if Lady Luck, Chance noire, Xīnghóng, Buffle Gardien, Papillon, andAile Bleue, the previous heroes would show up or if new ones would be taking their place.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Who was the first president of the fifth French Republic?” Adrien hears Nathalie ask.</p><p> </p><p>“Everyone thinks it was De Gaulle, but it was actually Rene Coty before the first elections.” He says in a bored tone, resting his cheek on his hand, having been all but forced to memorize that answer over a year ago and being asked it once every few months since.</p><p> </p><p>“Very good, Adrien.” Nathalie says as Adrien hears the dinning room door open up. Looking over to the dining room entrance, Adrien’s eyes widen in shock for a couple of seconds due to seeing his father. This is the first time Adrien sees his father out of his office since his mother disappeared a few months ago.</p><p> </p><p>“Give me a moment with my son, will you, Nathalie?” He hears his father ask, making Adrien worried.</p><p> </p><p>“Very well, sir.” Nathalie says before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.</p><p> </p><p>“You are <em>not</em>to go to school. The outside world is too dangerous for you. I’ve already told you this countless times. Your mother spent a lot of her time out there and look what happened. She’s gone.” Gabriel tellsAdrien. Adrien couldn’t help but imagine that flames would be bursting out of his father’s eyes if this were like any of the anime’s he’s watched, based off of how angry his father seemed to beat him.</p><p> </p><p>“But father-!”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I’m talking right now, so you best keep quiet. I want you right here where I can keep an eye on you. Everything you could ever wantis right here within these walls. I will not stand having you out there!”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not that dangerous, Father, and I don’t have everything I want here. I want to go to a normal school and make friends like everyone else my age. Even Chloe’s dad lets her go to a normal school!”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t you talk to me like that. You are not like everyone else, you are <em>my</em>son! Because of what you did, you will be spending the rest of the day locked in your room and I’ll be sure to have Simon stand guardout frontyour door.” Adrien hearshis father say before he walksout the dining room.</p><p> </p><p>Adrien picks up his history book and throws it as hard as he can against the nearest wall. He feels a bit better at the sound of the book hitting the wall, but he realizes that it’s no where near what he needs to get the frustration he has out of his system.</p><p> </p><p>“Adrien, your father wants you to -” “Go to my room. I know.” Adrien says to Nathalie, before running towards his room and slamming the door shut. Alone, he slides down to the floor while his back is pressed against the wall. He doesn’t bother trying to fight it as his anger turned to sadness, making him cry.</p><p> </p><p>Hearing a loud thumping sound coming from outside his bedroom window, Adrien gets up and heads for the window to try to see the cause of the sound.</p><p> </p><p>“What on Earth?” He asks.</p><p> </p><p>Wiping the tears off his face, he looks out the window and sees a giant stone creature.</p><p> </p><p>“Ready? Fire!” He hears one of the cops yell. Adrien’s eyes widen in shock as the police’s shots just make the stone creature grow bigger. Looking around, Adrien quickly finds the remote for his TV and changes the channel to the news.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I’m asking all Parisians to stay inside until this situation is under control.</em>” He sees Chloe’s dad, the mayor of Paris, say before the feed switches back to the news station.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>As amazing as it seems, it’s just been officially confirmed that Paris is, in fact, being attacked by a supervillain for the first time in over ten years. The police have been struggling to keep the situation under control with the stone creature absorbing all of their attacks.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>Adrien sighs before placing the remote on the table in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s that doing here?” Adrien asks himself, noticing a small, black, hexagonal shaped box with bright green lettering. Curious about what’s inside, he picked it up and opened it.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“I hate first days back at school.” Marinette says, after hearing what Nadja Chamack, her mom’s friend, say before turning back to the lunch she’d brought up from the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“What is that?” Marinette asks herself, seeing a black, hexagonal shaped box with pink *2 lettering. Not recognizing the box, she opened it up thinking that it might have been something from one of her parents.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>Adrien drops the box and covers his eyes, surprised, due to seeing a bright green ball of light float out of the box.</p><p> </p><p>After the light dims down, he uncovers his eyes and sees a black cat-like creature curled up into a ball not much bigger than the size of the palm of his hand yawn and stretch its limbs much like the cat it resembled.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you like the Genie In The Lamp?” Adrien asks, remembering the Disney movie him and his mother would often watch together before her disappearance.</p><p> </p><p>“Nope! However, I have met him once. So what if he grants three wishes? Big deal, I’m way better company than him!” The cat-like being says, startling Adrien. Sure, he’d technically asked if it, or him based off of the voice, if he was like the Genie, but that didn’t mean he’d been expecting an answer back.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m Plagg. Nice to meet you! Oooh, what’s this?!” Adrien hears the cat being, Plagg, say before flying off towards the foozeball table and tries to chew off the head of one of the plastic men.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, get back here!” Adrien says, jumping over the back of his couch, cringing at the loud crash he made thanks to miscalculating the jump, hoping that Simon wouldn’t be able to hear anything that was going on inside.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s this? Can you eat it?” Adrien hears Plagg say. Looking towards the direction of the voice, he saw that the cat being was now trying to eat the control stick to one of his video games.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t do that!” Adrien says, pushing himself off the ground before running towards Plagg.</p><p> </p><p>“Bummer, you can’t. What about this?!” Plagg says, flying off in another direction just in time to avoid Adrien grabbing him. Giving up on chasing the being, Adrien decides to just sit down on the floor, using the game Plagg had just tried to eat as a back rest, and chooses to just wait until the being was finished trying to eat everything. He’d realize sooner or later that there was nothing edible in the room. His father had made it clear a long time ago that he hates it when Adrien tries to keep food in his room.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>After seeing a ball of light the same pink as the lettering on the box float up from the box, Marinette squeaks out of shock before choosing to hide behind her computer chair.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a bug! A mouse! A bug-mouse!” Marinette says, getting ready to run up towards her bed after seeing a red creature with a black dot on its forehead appear.</p><p> </p><p>“Everything will be okay, you just need me to explain.” Marinette hears the creature say, in a high pitched, feminine voice, freaking her out even more.</p><p> </p><p>“Gah! Bug-mouse talks!” Marinette yells, throwing her pillows at it.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen, Marinette! I know everything may seem a bit strange to you…” The being says, only to find herself trapped in a glass cup. “Alright. If that makes you feel safer.” The being says looking around at the glass cup Marinette had trapped her in.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you and how do you know my name?” Marinette asks.</p><p> </p><p>“My name’s Tikki and I’m a Kwami, now may I please explain what you need to know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom! Dad!” Marinette yells, reaching for the latch of her trap door.</p><p> </p><p>“No, no, no!” Tikki says, flying through the glass before choosing to float in front of Marinette’s face. “I’m your friend, Marinette! You’re the one of the only people who’s able to stop Stoneheart!”</p><p> </p><p>“Stoneheart?”</p><p><br/>“That’s what the stone being you’ve probably seen has been calling himself. He’s one of the creations of the Butterfly Miraculous’s current user who, unfortunately, seems to have fallen in the wrong hands yet again. I really do wish Nooroo could end up with a better handler at least once.” Tikki says, a sad look on her face. “Now, if you’ll pay attention, I’ll explain to you how to stop the Butterfly’s Champion.”</p><p> </p><p>“This has got to be some sort of mistake. The only superpower I could have is super-awkwardness…” Marinette says, drifting off into thought. “I know! Alya would know what to do! She’s a new friend of mine, at least I hope she is. She loves superheroes, so she’d definitely be up for the job! You should go see her about it instead!”</p><p> </p><p>“No! Bad idea! Who knows what could happen if the Ladybug Miraculous were to fall into the hands of someone not meant to wear it! You’re the chosen one, so you’re practically the only one who would be able to use it without a problem! The only other people who would be able to wear the Ladybug Miraculous is the chosen bearer of the Black Cat Miraculous or anyone who’s previously worn the Ladybug or Black Cat! The same rules apply to the Black Cat Miraculous!”</p><p> </p><p>“Then why not just go to the previous person that had your Miraculous? Something tells me Lady Luck would love seeing you again and I seriously doubt I’m hero material.” Marinette says, confused.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s… complicated. The short answer being that B-” Tikki tried to say, only to end up with what looked like soap bubbles float out of her mouth. “Sorry. I forgot that I’m unable to say the name of a current or previous wearer without that happening. The short answer about Lady Luck is that, for reasons you’ll understand if or when you meet her, is that she’s unable to.”</p><p> </p><p>“So what do I have to do then?” Marinette asks, realizing that she might not have that much of a choice.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Well, sounds like she’s meeting Tikki now.” Sabine says, worriedly, as her and Tom hear Marinette freaking out in her room.</p><p> </p><p>“I really wish that she hadn’t been hurt like she had. Only because it would mean Marinette wouldn’t have to become the new user of Tikki’s Miraculous.” Tom says, as he hands his wife a cup of coco with mint extract.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey. What happened wasn’t your fault.” Sabine tells her husband, knowing that he blames himself for what happened to their friend.</p><p> </p><p>“So you’ve been saying since the day it happened. Doesn’t mean there’s a part of me that won’t stop believing it though.” He says as they hear Marinette call for them.</p><p> </p><p>“Should we go up there?” Sabine asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s give the two of them a bit of time first.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“I still don’t know what you’re doing here.” Adrien says, watching Plagg tear up a roll of his toilet paper.</p><p> </p><p>“Look kid, I’m a Kwami. I grant the power of destruction to whoever wears the Miraculous I’m bound to. Understand?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh-uh.” Adrien says, shaking his head.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, can’t say I didn’t try. Now, do you have anything to eat around here? I’m starving!”</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>This has got to be some sort of joke. Dad maybe?</em>’ Adrien thinks. ‘<em>Wait, no. It couldn’t be! He has no sense of humor!’</em></p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I almost forgot! No one can ever know I exist, not even your parents!”</p><p> </p><p>“My mom’s missing, probably dead even, and my dad probably forgets I even exist most the time, unless I do something that he disproves of, so why would I tell him? You have nothing to worry about.” Adrien tells the Kwami.</p><p> </p><p>“What is it with me getting the ones with parental situations that aren’t that good?” Plagg says, sounding as if he was sick of the situation he finds the new Miraculous wearers in. “Well, things will be getting better for you after this, if I have anything to say about it!”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t just grant you the power of destruction. I can also give you the ability to turn into a superhero. Or villain, depending on what your intentions are, but please don’t do that. The Miraculous weren’t intended for evil and I still get nightmares about that time someone decided to use me for evil reasons.” *3</p><p> </p><p>“You can make me a superhero?” Adrien asks, making a mental note to see if it was safe to ask Plagg about some other time.</p><p> </p><p>“Yep!”</p><p> </p><p>“But I’m stuck here! I’m not even supposed to leave the property unless my father says it’s okay. Not to mention how I’m not allowed to even go to a regular school! What good is a superhero if their own house is a prison to them?”</p><p> </p><p>“None at all. Why do you think I said things are gonna change?Something tells me you and your partner will get along great. Most Ladybugs and Black Catsdo.If you’re willing for there to be a change, just put on the ring and say ‘Claws Out’! That’s how you transform. Then each Miraculous has a special power. Yours is Destruction. To activate it, you just have to say ‘Cataclysm’.You should find the ring in the box.” Plagg explains.</p><p> </p><p>“Got it.” Adrien says, taking the ring out of the box and putting it on. “Plagg, Claws Out!”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait! I didn’t explain everything you need to know yet!” Plagg yells as he gets sucked into the ring.</p><p> </p><p>“Woah!” Adrien says excitedly, as he feels a strong wind and sees the same green light from earlier cover his body.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“So, all I have to do is break the object where the thingy is hiding?” Marinette asks, putting on the red earrings with five black dots, watching in the mirror as they changed to match the same color as her hair.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s called an Akuma. You need to capture and purify it otherwise the situation will get worse than it already is.”<br/><br/>“Right. Akuma. Got it! Capture it, and what’s that charm thing called again?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s called Lucky Charm. It’s one of your superpowers! Only use it when you feel like you absolutely need to. After you use it, you’ll only have five minutes before you change back.”</p><p> </p><p>“This is all going too fast for me Tikki. I don’t think I’ll be able to pull this off.” Marinette says, sitting down on her computer chair.</p><p> </p><p>“You can do it, Marinette! I believe in you, so now all you need to do is start believing in yourself too!” Tikki says. “All you need to do in order to transform is say ‘Spots On’.”</p><p> </p><p>“Spots on?” Marinette asks Tikki, making sure she heard correctly.</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki, what’s going on?” Marinette asks, scared as the same pink light she saw earlier surrounded her as she felt what seemed like a strong wind blowing around her.</p><p> </p><p>When the light disappeared, Marinette looks into her full-length mirror and sees what she’s wearing. A red body suit with black dots, a yoyo wrapped around her waist, a black pouch on the outer side of her right thigh, and what appears to be small wings that start near her shoulder blades, before wrapping themselves around her waist. She realizesthat theyresemble fairy or dragonfly wings more than ladybug wings. She tests them out and, after she realizes that she can move them, tries to see if she can fly with them. She manages to get herself a couple inches off the ground before she falls down onto her bedroom floor.</p><p> </p><p>“How does this thing come off?” Marinette asks, trying to find the edge to her gloves and boots, or even a zipper somewhere as she pushes herself up from the floor.</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki, if you can hear me, I would like my normal clothes back! I’m not going anywhere unless I have them back!” As a result, she feels a wave of urgency that she knows isn’t coming from her.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Stoneheart is heading towards the Montparnasse tower. </em><em>The monster seems to be unstoppable!</em>” Marinette hears. Turning towards the screen, she sees Alya chasing after Stoneheart on a bike.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh no. Alya!” Marinette says, feeling alarm and fear from both her and not. She figures it’s safe to assume that she’s feeling Tikki’s emotions, but realizes that there’s no way for her to ask Tikki about it now.</p><p> </p><p>“Marinette, did you get home alright?” Marinette hears her mom say, her voice coming closer to her room.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, Mammon! I have my door locked though! I’m working on something for you and Papa’s anniversary!” Marinette says in a panic as she quietly locked her door, only realizing too late that she ruined the surprise she’s been designing, and would now have to start on actually making the thing, instead of constantly editing the design.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, dear. I’ll leave you to it!” Marinette hears, allowing her to let out a sigh of relief as she climbs up to her balcony.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, so I have special powers now. And this yoyo that’s supposed to act as my weapon? Then these… wings, I guess, that I have little to no clue on how to actually use.” Marinette says to herself, wrapping the wings back around her waist as she starts swinging the yoyo around before accidentally letting go.</p><p> </p><p>“Really?” Marinette asks annoyed, watching as it flies off and gets itself wrapped around the head of a gargoyle. She pulls the end that was still in her hands in hopes that it would come loose, only to squeal in surprise as she goes flying off.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“I think I’m finally getting the hang of this.” Adrien says as he walks across his baton that he’d extended between two buildings. Hearing someone above him screaming, he looks up to see some dark haired girl in a red and black suit come falling down towards him. She ends up falling right onto him, and the two of them find themselves hanging upside down from his baton, wrapped in some kind of wire.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it sure was nice of you to drop in on me.” Adrien jokes, looking at the girl he’s currently wrapped to.</p><p> </p><p>“Hold up, let me try something.” The girl says. Then the two of them</p><p> </p><p>“Ow!” They say as the two of them end up landing on their heads.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so sorry about this. I didn’t mean for this to happen really.” She says, helping him up after standing up herself.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s alright. I bet you’re the partner my Kwami told me about.” He says, noticing the pattern of her suit, remembering how Plagg mentioned his partner being a ladybug.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m… Chat Noir. Yeah. Chat Noir. And you are?” Chat Noir, according to what he’d just told his new partner, asks, rubbing where he hit his head, hopping that a knot wouldn’t form. That would be a hard thing to explain away to his father. Well, whoever was the first to notice and then his father later on. *4</p><p> </p><p>“I’m uh…” the red and black clad girl says, tugging on the wire of her yoyo. “I’m Mar –“” she starts to say, before it came loose and hit him on the head. “I’m madly clumsy. I kind of find it ironic that someone who tends to trip on her own two feet all the time got the ladybug since they mean good luck.”</p><p> </p><p>“No need to worry about it. I’m still learning the ropes too.” He says before the two of them hear a bunch of rumbling. They look over to where the sound was coming from, only to see the Montparnasse Tower fall down.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are you going?” Chat Noir hears his partner ask, after he made his way back up to the roof he was on earlier.</p><p> </p><p>“To save Paris! That’s what we’re supposed to do, remember?” Chat says. Noticing the nervous look on her face, he climbs back down.</p><p> </p><p>“I can tell you’re scared, but look on the bright side. At least we can watch out for each other, right? We’re not doing this alone, because we have each other.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. Doing this alone would be really bad. I… I’ll follow you to where the Akuma is, but don’t be surprised if I chicken out.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, but when you say Akuma, what did you mean by that exactly?” He asks, gaining a confused look from her.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>When Marinette first started to go flying through the air, she wasn’t expecting that she’d stop because she’d gotten wrapped up in her yoyo’s wire with her new partner.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it sure was nice of you to drop in on me.” she hears him say, the tone of his voice making it clear that he’d made a pun.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>I really hope he isn’t one of those people who make puns all the time.</em>’ she thinks, as she frees the two of them from the wire.</p><p> </p><p>Both of them land on their head and she thinks ‘<em>Great, as if I hadn’t had enough pain on my head today.</em>’. She starts to introduce herself, but feels what she can only guess is alarm from Tikki each time she tries to say her own name.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m madly clumsy.” She says, before somewhat explaining what she means, in a poor attempt to cover up her almost letting her name slip.</p><p> </p><p>She finds comfort in the fact that he’s new to owning a Miraculous too. For a bit, she thought that there was a chance that the Cat in front of her could have been ChanceNoirand that he’d just looked younger than he actually was. Then she remembered how the few pictures that had been taken of the previous Cat close up showed him to have gray eyes, while the one in front of her has green. The only thing the two of them seemed to have in common was their blond hair.</p><p> </p><p>Hearing rumbling, her and her new partner turn towards the direction and see what was causing the sound.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are you going?” She asks him, nervous and worried. He responds by saying he’s going to save Paris, reminding her how that’s what the two of them are supposed to be doing, He saw how nervous she is, she knows he must have, because he goes back to her side and somehow manages to say what she needs to hear in order to bring herself to follow him towards the danger.</p><p> </p><p>“I…I’ll follow you to where the Akuma is, but don’t be surprised if I chicken out.” She warns him, as she gets ready to throw her yoyo, figuring that whatever it did that ended up with her and Chat Noir hanging upside down together was probably a way for her to move around.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, but when you say Akuma, what do you mean by that exactly?” she hears Chat Noir ask as they head off.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Please don’t tell me his Kwami only told him how to transform!</em>’ she thinks, alarmed at how little her partner seems to know. She feels Tikki’s annoyance and anger too. Somehow, Marinette’s able to tell that it’s directed at Chat Noir’s Kwami, not her partner.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“KIIIIIMM!!! So who’s the wuss now?!” The two of them hear not that long after they reach the stadium, having followed the trail of destruction that Stoneheart was making on his way.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, it’s not very nice to pick on people who are smaller than you!” Marinette hears her partner yell towards Stoneheart.</p><p> </p><p>“I guess you’re talking about yourself!” Marinette hears after making it to the top of the stadium. Taking one look at Stoneheart, she freezes. She’d known that every hit he takes only makes him bigger, but she hadn’t been expecting him to be almost two or three times the size of when she first saw him.</p><p> </p><p>“Where are you, partner?!” She hears Chat Noir call out to her after hitting Stoneheart with his baton, only succeeding in making him grow a bit bigger.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you waiting for? The world is watching you!” She hears a familiar voice say. Looking in the direction it came from, she sees Alya recording with her phone. Seeing Stoneheart throw Chat Noir, she quickly makes a guess as to where he might end up landing. The result? Not good. A broken water pipe that was torn out of the ground and, if he did land on it, would probably end up impaling him.</p><p> </p><p>Knowing that the chances of him saving himself are slim to none with how fast he’s flying towards the pipe, she swings down and catches him.</p><p> </p><p>“Animal cruelty? How shameful!” She tells Stoneheart with a voice of confidence, while on the inside she’s freaking out.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry about how long it took for me to join the fight, Chat Noir.” She says as they land back on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s alright, Red Wonder.” Chat Noir says, as one of his animal ears twitch to the side. “Duck!” Chat yells, knocking the both of them over as Stoneheart threw a chunk of the stadium’s seating at them.</p><p> </p><p>“Red Wonder?” Marinette asks as they stand back up, ignoring the feeling of her hands shaking from fright.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, like Robin the Boy Wonder? I would have said Spotted Wonder, but that one sounded weird in my head.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, it probably should have stayed there.” She agrees.</p><p> </p><p>“Now, let’s turn this pile of boulders into a pile of gravel!” He says taking</p><p> </p><p>“Wait!” Marinette says, grabbing the part of his belt that appears to be acting as a tail. “Haven’t you noticed by now? He only gets bigger and stronger with each hit! We’ll have to try something different.”</p><p> </p><p>“Different how?</p><p> </p><p>“Um…” She says, looking over at where Stoneheart was trying to figure out where Kim had gone. “I have no clue.”</p><p> </p><p>“What about our powers? Apparently I have the power to destroy everything I touch. I just need to figure out how.”</p><p> </p><p>“You need to figure out how? Didn’t your Kwami tell you anything?” Marinette asked him, while mentally yelling at herself for not realizing that his Kwami probably hadn’t said much after finding out the cat themed hero didn’t even know what an Akuma was.</p><p> </p><p>“Only what my powers were, that I would have a partner, and how to transform. I sort of got excited about my new freedom that I transformed before he had a chance to tell me anything else. He might have told me how to activate my power, but I forget.”</p><p> </p><p>“I guess it’s up to me then.” Marinette says, while making a note to ask Chat Noir later about what exactly he’d meant by ‘new freedom’.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>If anything, this feels more like a burden than freedom to me.</em>’ She thinks, calling out for her Lucky Charm.</p><p> </p><p>“Since there’s a chance you don’t know this, I feel it’s necessary to point out that now we only have five minutes until I change back, so we better get this over with.” She tells her partner, looking at the red and black object she caught.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>What the heck am I supposed to do with a scuba suit?</em>’ She thinks, holding up said object in confusion.</p><p> </p><p>“Cool superpower. And how do we stop him exactly?”</p><p> </p><p>“My Kwami told me that we have to break the object the Akuma’s hiding.” She says, feeling like she was forgetting something.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, he’s made entirely out of stone. I don’t see any objects on him. Unless it’s disguised as one of the stones?” Chat Noir suggests, looking at his partner as she observes Stoneheart.</p><p> </p><p>“Chat Noir, look at his right hand! No matter what he does, he never opens it! Not even with what I can remember from any of the news footage I saw! It’s like the Russian Dolls! The object isn’t on him, it’s hidden inside!”</p><p> </p><p>“So what’s your plan then?” Chat Noir asks.</p><p> </p><p>“I got it!” Marinette exclaims, after looking around for a bit.</p><p> </p><p>Walking over to the water hose that the stadium keeps in case there’s ever a fire, she grabs an end of it and makes sure it stays secure inside the swim suit before tying the other four openings shut.</p><p> </p><p>“Could you do me a favor?” She asks Alya, who was standing next to the hose tap.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure! What do you need?” The girl says, excited.</p><p> </p><p>“When I say so, could you turn the hose on for me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds easy enough. I don’t see why not!”</p><p> </p><p>“Chat Noir, do you trust me?” She asks, turning towards her partner.</p><p> </p><p>“We may have only met today, but so far I haven’t seen any reasons why I shouldn’t. Why?” Chat Noir asked, only to find himself getting fastball specialed towards Stoneheart.</p><p> </p><p>“This girl’s crazy!” He yells as he goes flying towards Stoneheart.</p><p> </p><p>“Be ready.” Marinette tells Alya, before running towards Stoneheart, jumping towards him, and challenging him to catch her as she’s flying towards her.</p><p> </p><p>“Camera girl, the tap!” She yells after Stoneheart grabs her, saying ‘camera girl’ instead of Alya’s name so she doesn’t put herself at the risk of getting questioned about how she knew her name later on.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>This girl is awesome. She’s crazy awesome!</em>’ Chat Noir thought, watching as his partner stomps on what appeared to be a jagged rock, only for it to turn into a crumpled paper ball after a black and purple butterfly flew out of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Oof.” Chat says, after landing on his back as a black and purple light passed over the Akumatized person, turning them back to their normal self. At least, as far as any of them could see that is.</p><p> </p><p>“You were incredible, miss… uh… Bug. You did it!” Chat Noir says as he hears the previously Akumatized person ask how he’d gotten there.</p><p> </p><p>“We did it, partner.” Marinette says, holding up her fist for a fist bump.</p><p> </p><p>“Pound it!” They both say at the same time. They both gave each other a shocked look before laughing at their synchronized speaking.</p><p> </p><p>“You can leave now if you feel like it. Or you could stay here and help me try to cheer him up.” Marinette says, gesturing towards Ivan.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m actually thinking of roaming the city while transformed for a bit. I should still have plenty of time until anyone notices me missing.” Chat Noir said. “Something tells me that he won’t be the last Akuma victim, so I guess I’ll see you next time?” *5</p><p> </p><p>“I guess so.” Marinette says, watching as her new partner takes off. Personally, she hopes that the next Akuma won’t be for a while.</p><p> </p><p>“Ivan, you haven’t even got the guts to tell Mylene you love her, you wuss.” Marinette reads off the paper the butterfly had previously been inhabiting.</p><p> </p><p>“Kim wrote it. He’s always making fun of me.” She hears Ivan say, sadly. She’d known, due to a tendency to observe her other classmates, that he likes Mylene. She doesn’t blame him for getting Akumatized over Kim saying something like that to him.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, you shouldn’t get bent out of shape over stuff like that. There’s no shame in telling someone how you feel. If you just get too nervous to tell her, then I guess you could try writing it down instead? Everyone gets nervous around their crush at some point, Ivan.” She says, kneeling down and taking one of his hands in what she hoped was a comforting way.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you know my name?” He asks.</p><p> </p><p>“It was on the note.” She reminds him.</p><p> </p><p>“Amazing, uncanny, spectacular! Are you and Chat Noir going to be the beginning of Paris’s new superhero team? Are you and Chat Noir related to any of the previous heroes? If not, have you at least met any of them?” Marinette hears Alya ask, holding up her phone with the camera pointing at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Um… I really hope that this situation doesn’t get as serious as it has with the past heroes and villains that cause our duo to expand, but I guess Chat Noir and myself will be protecting Paris like the former heroes. Also, I can’t say for sure if Chat Noir and I are related to or have met any of the previous heroes since heroes tend to keep their identities a secret. It is an entertaining idea though!”<br/><br/>“I’ve got plenty more questions to ask you, like for starters, what’s your name?” Alya asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh… Maybe we can find a way for the two of us to do an interview some other time? Right now, I really need to get going.” Marinette says, hearing her earrings beep their first warning.</p><p> </p><p>“And you can call me Ladybug!” She says, swinging off.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Thanks to this amateur footage, the people of Paris now know the identities of the city’s newest heroes”</em></p><p> </p><p><em><br/></em>“I did it, Tikki! I can’t believe I did it!” Marinette says, laughing and jumping on her bed, high on leftover adrenaline from the fight.</p><p> </p><p>“You see? I told you you were up to it!” Tikki says, happily spinning around Marinette as the teenhearsher parents call her down to dinner. On her way down however, the feeling that she’d forgotten to do something returned.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I am pleased to announce that we will be organizing a huge celebration in honor of the new heroes of Paris, Ladybug and Chat Noir, and all the </em><em>past heroes of this city!</em><em>!</em>” Adrien hears Andre Bourgeois say. Thinking back to the other heroes, Adrien realizes that the names of him and his partner weren’t really that creative. At the same time though, the names always seem to match their personalities to some extent, so he figures their names should be good enough.</p><p> </p><p>“Ewww. What is this?” He hears Plagg complain after lifting up the cover of a tray Adrien had the cook his father hired for him bring in.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you kidding me? M. Batteux worked really hard on all of that!” Adrien says, looking at the food laid out in front of him and the Kwami.</p><p> </p><p>“If you expect me to get my energy back after the transformation, then I’ll need something a bit more… delicate!” Plagg tells him, covering the food back up.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, fine. What do you want?” Adrien asks, picking his phone up and selecting the chef’s name in his contacts.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“I’m home!” She jokingly out, wheeling herself into her front door, knowing that she wouldn’t get a response. She’s currently living by herself, with her boyfriend currently visiting his family in London.</p><p> </p><p>When she first saw how there was a new user of the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses, she was a bit worried for the duo, remembering how she felt when she was first starting out.</p><p> </p><p>Turning on the TV, she changes the channel to the news to see if there would be any updates on the duo.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Just as Paris is about to celebrate Heroes Day thanks to the arrival of Paris’s new heroes, Ladybug and Chat Noir, </em><em>a new wave of panic is sweeping across the capital as dozens of people are transformed into copies of Stoneheart!</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Dang it Tikki! You overloaded her on information, didn’t you?!” She asks, although she knows full well that the Kwami wouldn’t hear her. She made plans to try scolding the Kwami if she ever saw her again.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Camembert cheese. That’s just great. The only thing he likes is Camembert, which means that I’ll have to smell like stinky, old cheese all the time.” Adrien says, watching in disgust as Plagg shoves a whole slice of the cheese into his mouth.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>These victims transformed into the Stoneheart copies are still like statues. The police are trying to figure out if there’s any way to change them back or, at the very least, move them to a safer location where they’re at less risk of being hit by cars. Will these poor souls come back to life or are they doomed to be frozen in t</em><em>i</em><em>me forever?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Plagg, what’s going on? I thought we defeated him!” Adrien says, feeling somewhat bad for the frozen people.</p><p> </p><p>“Di o an aybu capure e Auma? If no, tha wha happen.” Plagg says around a mouthful of Camembert.</p><p> </p><p>“What does that have to do with the new stone beings?” He asks, somehow managing to understand what Plagg had said as the Kwami swallowed the cheese.</p><p> </p><p>“An Akuma multiplies if it’s not purified by Ladybug. Knowing her Kwami, Ladybug probably forgot due to Tikki making her go into information overload. She does that to her new users a lot, but she’s been trying to stop so it’s less common now than when humans first started using our Miraculouses. So, just as a heads up, you’ll have to defeat an army of Stonehearts the next time the original gets Akumatized.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, that’s just great.” Adrien says with his face buried in a couch cushion.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Dang it! I knew I forgot something!” Marinette screams into her pillow.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll get another chance, Marinette! Out of all the other people I’ve seen bear my Miraculous, you want to know how many of them always managed to remember everything? None. Forgetting something is simply part of how the human brain works.” Tikki says, hugging Marinette’s cheek after the girl hadmoved to lay on her side.</p><p> </p><p>“Seriously? All of them forgot something?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes and compared to some mistakes I’ve seen a Miraculous wearer make, what happened due to you forgetting to purify the Akuma is like a crumb compared to that cake I saw your parents working on downstairs.” Tikki says, remembering the Eiffel tower cake covered in macaroons she’d seen Tom and Sabine working on.</p><p><br/>“Wow. I find it hard to believe that anyone could have messed up that badly.”</p><p> </p><p>“You have no idea.” Tikki says, a sad look on her face as she thought back to the most recent time someone had used Plagg for evil reasons, and how that whole city was now at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. *6</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Hey it’s me. Did you see what just happened here?” She asks her boyfriend over her phone.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Yeah, I saw. Do you think </em><em>it’s Papillon</em><em>?</em>” He asks.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know. If it is him, something must have happened to Aile Bleue. Didn’t she say she thinks her Miraculous might be broken?”She asks him.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I hope that’s not what happened. Remember how dangerous Master Fu said using a broken Miraculous could be to the user?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“How could I forget.” She says sadly.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was originally going to wait until sometime in November to post this chapter, but I figured there'd be no harm in posting it the same month as the first chapter, since it's the same Akuma.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>Police have officially started gathering together all the stone beings and are placing them in a </em><em>classified</em><em>location. There’s still no sign of any of them turning back to normal.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>We won’t stop until we find a way to change them back to their normal selves. Until that time comes however, we’re not making very much progress.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Paris is relying on our newest heroes, Ladybug and Chat Noir, to save us all. Our lives depend on them.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Iswear it’s like none of them remember how the person needs to get Akumatized again in order for them to change back.” She says, considering tracking down the boy that had gotten turned into Stoneheart and makinghim upset herself if he doesn’t get Akumatized again by the end of the day. After all, it would make the people change back far faster than if they were to just wait. She knows, due to Papillon forgetting to remove the power from the first Champion butterfly he’d made.</p><p> </p><p>It had been very useful with the next fight they’d been in, but he tried to not do it again unless their team found themselves desperate for multiple people fighting on their side.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“I know how upsetting and scary this may seem, but don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ve got two new superheroes looking out for Paris! The best way we, as civilians, can help them is to show them we’re not scared because we trust them.” Marinette hearsher father say as she’s helpinghim clean upthe dishes. Their dishwasher broke a few weeks ago and they still had yet to replace it.</p><p> </p><p>“But what if Ladybug fails or doesn’t even show up at all because of embarrassment at forgetting whatever it was she forgot to do last time?” Marinette asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Well then I’d come and save you, of course! Super baker to the rescue!” Tom says, making his daughter laugh as he held up a baguette and starts swinging it around as if he were fighting off invisible opponents.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, Super Dad.” Marinette says, jumping up to give her father a kiss on the cheek, him having made her feel better.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re welcome. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s about time you start getting ready for school.” Tom tells her.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“You’re a strange kid. Who would want to go to school when you could stay at home all day?” Plagg asksAdrien, hiding in the hood of Adrien’s jacket.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t get it Plagg? I’ve been at home practically all day my entire life and I’m sick of it! I want to meet new people and have more friends other than Chloe and the ones I’ve met online.” Adrien says, turning to cut through the park, realizing that he’d get to the school faster that way.</p><p> </p><p>“You want to know what I think is strange?” He asksthe Kwami, stopping to catch his breath. “The fact that all you eat is that disgusting, rotten smelling, Camembert cheese and now I’ll have to smell like it all the time. <em>That</em>is what I find strange.”</p><p> </p><p>“All magic comes at a price, so if you want to be able to turn into a superhero then the price you’ll have to pay is smelling like my food of choice.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah? If that’s the price I’ll have to pay, then is there one for the people who’ve been Akumatized?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yep. You might see what soon enough.” Plagg says, flying out of the hood to grab a piece of cheese out of Adrien’s pocket before flying back into the hood.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Look at this site I just created! I’m calling it the Ladyblog!” Alya says, shoving her phone in Marinette’s face. “Take a look at how many views I’ve gotten already!”</p><p> </p><p>“Why do you trust her so much? All of these stone beings...”</p><p> </p><p>“She’ll save them! Besides, if it is somehow her fault for them multiplying like I’ve heard some haters say, everyone makes mistakes every once in a while! If there’s someone that’s never made a mistake in their life, then I seriously doubt that person is a human being.” Alya says as the two start heading up the steps to the school’s second floor.</p><p> </p><p>“But what if she doesn’t feel as if she’s ready to be a hero even thought everyone else thinks she is?”</p><p> </p><p>“What are you talking about, girl?” Alya asks, pausing in the middle of the stairway. “Oh, I get it!’</p><p> </p><p>“You get what?” Marinette asks, a bit worried. Didn’t help that Alya standing a couple steps above her made her more intimidating due to the new height difference.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re scared, aren’t you? Don’t be! I’ve seen the duo with my own two eyes! Ladybug and Chat Noir are true superheroes. That’s why I believe they’re going to protect us. I know that not everyone believes in them, but I know for a fact that I believe in them with my whole heart.” Alya says before continuing to walk up the steps.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>If Alya’s able to believe in me, then I guess I should give it a shot at believing in myself too.</em>’ Marinette thinks as shefollowsafter her friend.</p><p> </p><p>“Have you ever dreamt of being a superhero?” Marinette asksout of curiosity.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you kidding me? Who wouldn’t!” Alya says, almost as if she thought her answer should have been obvious.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>If it weren’t for what Tikki said, with it being dangerous for anyone other than Chat Noir wearing the Ladybug earrings, I might try </em><em>giving</em><em>them to her instead. Then again, she doesn’t really seem like a Ladybug to me. If anything, she’d probably be </em><em>a good fit for the Fox</em><em>.</em>’ She thought as they neared the classroom, remembering how Vixen, the most recent hero to bear the Fox Miraculous and the other Foxes before her were shown to act.People were even recently discovering evidence that Robin Hood, a famous bandit from medieval England, was real and probablyowned the Fox Miraculous at some point. *1</p><p> </p><p>She’d asked Tikki to confirm if that was true, and Tikki had said that Robin Hood had used it. She’d also confirmed Marinette’s suspicions that she’d been feeling the Kwami’s emotions while transformed. Tikki had been surprised at the fact, saying that it means Marinette is the descendant of at least two people who have used a Miraculous in the past. *2</p><p> </p><p>“So, you don’t remember anything?” Marinette hearsAlix ask as her and Alya walk into their classroom.</p><p> </p><p>“You were going totally ballistic. It was mega cool.” She hears Juleka say. Looking at where everyone in the class had crowded, she can see that they had cornered Ivan. Probably to question him about what happened yesterday.</p><p> </p><p>“I was seriously scared that you were going to crush me. Not cool, dude!”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry about that, Kim. I wasn’t in full control of myself.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well I bet you deserved getting chased by him like that, with whatever it was you said to Ivan on that note yesterday!” She hearsAlya say to Kim.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh please! Once a monster, always a monster!” Marinette hearsChloe say as she takesa quick look outside the classroom window, looking towards the entrance. There was a small part of her that wanted to see if the boy from yesterday would show up again.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t let the door hit you on your way out!” She hears Chloe call, making her turn around in time to see Ivan run out the door. She hoped it had just been a trick of the light, but his hands looked almost like they were made out of stones matching his skin tone.</p><p> </p><p>Deciding that her classmate was more important than trying to see who that blond boy from yesterday was, she ran after him. If she had waited even a bit longer though, she mighthave been able to seehim.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Adrien, don’t do this again! Your father will be furious! You remember how he acted yesterday!” He hears Nathalie call after him.</p><p> </p><p>“Then just tell him that you got here too late. Please!” Adrien says.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, but I can’t. If I do and he finds out that I lied for you, I could lose my job, so get in the car.”</p><p> </p><p>Adrien looks at the expression on her face and realizes that she was most likely telling him the truth. He actually liked having her around because she reminded him of a time when his mother was still there, even if she has a tendency to tell his father whenever he does something he wouldn’t approve of.</p><p> </p><p>Because of that, he doesn’t want to risk any chance that he might never be able to see her again, so he got in. He watches as the school disappears from the review window, knowing that this time might actually be the last time he’s able to see the building again.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“You know, you should try telling Mylene how you feel.” Marinette says, seeing Ivan sitting on a bench in the park across from the school.</p><p> </p><p>“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”</p><p> </p><p>“I noticed the way you look at her. I think it’s really sweet how you like her.” She says, sitting down next to him. She feels worried when she spots the butterfly from yesterday. “Something tells me that she might have feelings for you too. Why don’t you go talk to her?”</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t. I’m no good with making my thoughts come out of my mouth the right way.” He says.</p><p> </p><p>“Words are overrated anyway. Who needs them when you could write or draw to show how you feel?” Marinette says, holding back a sigh of relief when she sees the butterfly start to fly away as Ivan’s face lit up with hope.</p><p> </p><p>“I like writing songs. Do you think she would like it if I wrote one for her?” Ivan asks, hopeful.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t see why not! I think it’s a great idea, so you should go for it!” She says, watching as Ivan takes off, seemingly excited to get started on the song.</p><p> </p><p>“That was a close one.” Marinette says, standing up to head back to the school.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Oh no, I’m going to be late!” Mylene says, noticing the time on her phone.</p><p> </p><p>“Mylene!” She hears someone say as she feels a tap on her shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Gah!” She says, turning around in a jump.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, Ivan! You scared me!” Mylene says, seeing the taller teen.</p><p> </p><p>“I made a song for you. Would you like to hear it?” He asks, shocking Mylene. She’d known that he likes music and how he would, on occasion, make songs himself, but she never expected him to make one for her. She found it rather touching in a way.</p><p> </p><p>“Um, alright.” She says, nervously, due to not really knowing what genre of music he likes.</p><p> </p><p>He pulls out his phone and starts playing loud, rough music that he’d recorded earlier as he sang, or rather screamed, the lyrics. It terrifies her to the point of running off crying.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Bourgeois, Chloe?” Marinette hears Miss. Bustier say, calling attendance as she draws a design she has in mind for a new outfit.</p><p> </p><p>“Present!”</p><p> </p><p>“Bruel, Ivan?” She hears, making her look around wanting to make sure the teen had made it to the class.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Oh no.</em>’ Marinette thinks, seeing how Mylene seems upset and Ivan’s not there.</p><p> </p><p>“Bruel, Ivan?” Miss. Bustier says again.</p><p> </p><p>“PRESENT!!” She hears as the doorway to the classroom busts down, due to it being kicked in by someone made out of gray stones.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>I’m</em>so<em>glad Tikki made me memorize what I had to do with the Akumas and Lucky Charm last night.</em>’ Marinette thinks, seeing how Ivan had been turned into Stoneheart again.</p><p> </p><p>“Mylene!!” He says, looking around the room. He sees the mixed girl and grabs her up.</p><p> </p><p>“Ivan, put me down! You’re scaring me!” Mylene says, staring to tear up.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not Ivan anymore! I’m Stoneheart now!”</p><p> </p><p>“Why are you doing this?” Mylene asks as Marinette was thinking of locations to escape to so she could transform.</p><p> </p><p>“So the two of us can be together forever!” He says as Chloe starts whining to her dad about Stoneheart’s return over the phone.</p><p> </p><p>“Shut up.” Stoneheart says, whacking Chloe’s phone out of the blonde’s hands, making it go flying against the wall before picking her up.</p><p> </p><p>“I demand you put me down this instant! My daddy’s the mayor! Do you have any idea what he could do to you and your family?!” Chloe shrieks as Stoneheart busts his way through the classroom window.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on, girl! Let’s follow them!” Alya says, dragging Marinette towards the exit.</p><p> </p><p>“You go ahead. I’m going to find somewhere to hide.” Marinette says, pulling herself out of Alya’s grasp.</p><p> </p><p>“But then you’ll miss Ladybug in action!” Alya says, shocked at the idea that Marinette doesn’t want to see the heroes fight in person.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll be able to keep up with the heroes easier without me. I’ll just slow you down.” Marinette says, holding up Alya’s bag for her to take it.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” Alya asks, putting her bag’s strap over her shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure. Go ahead.” Marinette says.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright. Make sure to meet up with me at the park after Stoneheart’s taken care of this time so we know the other’s safe, alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure thing, now go.” Marinette says.</p><p> </p><p>After Alya takes off, Marinette waits for a bit before taking off after Stoneheart herself.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>Nathalie had, yet again, told Gabriel about Adrien sneaking off to go to school. This time, Gabriel hadn’t held back his anger quite as well as he had last time. As a result, he ended up hitting Adrien on the cheek. Hard. *3</p><p> </p><p>Plagg watches as Adrien takes his anger out on a fencing dummy by hitting it as hard as he could. Looking at where Gabriel had hit Adrien, Plagg cringes, noticing how a hand print was starting to form there. If it were allowed, he would use Cataclysm on Adrien’s father. He never liked it when one of his kittens got hurt by someone that was supposed to care about them.</p><p> </p><p>Hearing something loud outside, Plagg flies over to the window and looks out. Looking over at Adrien’s current state, Plagg had never been more glad for an Akuma than he is in that moment.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Kid! How about you leave that dummy alone and take your anger out on an Akuma instead. Stoneheart’s back!” Plagg tells Adrien.</p><p> </p><p>Needless to say, Adrien transforms right after that, hoping to get his mind off of the fact that his father was, surprisingly to him, willing to strike him.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“You have no idea who you’re dealing with! My father, the Mayor, will call in the whole calvary once he hears that you’ve taken me!” Chat Noir hears Chloe say the moment he finds the giant stone being.</p><p> </p><p>“And let’s not forget about the superheroes!” He says, hitting Stoneheart’s back as hard as he can with his baton.</p><p> </p><p>“Whoops. I forgot you do that.” Chat Noir says, seeing Stoneheart grow bigger thanks to his hit.</p><p> </p><p>“More like Super-incompetent you mean!” Chloe says with a huff.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Now that hurts.</em>’ He thinks, hearing what Chloe said.</p><p> </p><p>“You wanted the calvary? Well here it is!” Stoneheart says, as Chat Noir felt what was almost like an earthquake. Looking around, he realizes that the cause of the feeling was because of him getting surrounded by the Stoneheart copies.</p><p> </p><p>“Seize him!” The real Stoneheart commands his copies.</p><p> </p><p>“Watch out!” He hears a girl with multi-colored dreadlocks in Stoneheart’s other hand warn him before all his sight went black, due to one of the copies grabbing him by the head.</p><p> </p><p>“Ivan, where are we going?!” He hears the girl with the dreadlocks say.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>So,</em>that’s<em>his real name!</em>’ Chat noir thinks, struggling to get free. ‘<em>I hate being trapped.</em>’</p><p> </p><p>“We’re going to deliver a message at the Eiffel Tower, then a bunch of pretty black butterflies will bring us together forever.” Stoneheart says.</p><p> </p><p>“Ugh. All this lovey-dovey stuff is making me sick!” Chloe complains.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry, little monster. I’ll be taking care of you too.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you can hear me, Ladybug, I could really use your help here!” Chat Noir yells out, as he starts to feel claustrophobic.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“If you can hear me, Ladybug, I could really use your help!” Marinette hears Chat Noir say as she rounded a street corner, only to freeze in terror at how many Stoneheart copies there were. There were way many than what the news had lead her to believe.</p><p> </p><p>“Let go, rockhead!” She hears Chat Noir say, still trapped inside one of the Stoneheart’s grasps as another one threw a car towards a building. Following where the car went, Marinette fells as if her heart tried to leap out of her chest with fear, noticing that Alya had gotten trapped underneath.</p><p> </p><p>“Marinette? Are you okay?” Tikki asks, peaking out from Marinette’s purse.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, Tikki. I’m fine. Just scared. What if I mess up worse than last time?” She asks ducking behind the building in a way that Alya wouldn’t notice her in case she somehow manages to get free by herself.</p><p> </p><p>“You still remember what to do with the Akuma and Lucky Charm, right?” Tikki asks, seeing Marinette nod her head in confirmation.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, as long as you remember to do that, then you shouldn’t have a problem. I believe in you Marinette!” Tikki says, trying to encourage the teen.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright. Tikki, spots on!” Marinette says, causing the same light and wind to surround her like it had yesterday. It was something she didn’t think she’d ever really get use to.</p><p> </p><p>“You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.” Ladybug says as she helps Alya out from underneath the car. Seeing something metal on the ground, Ladybug looks at it and realizes that it was her partner’s baton. Even if they weren’t partners, chances are that she would have realized that it was his anyway because of the glowing green paw print in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>“Chat Noir! Extend it!” Ladybug says, throwing the baton into his hand while tossing her yoyo so the wire wound wrap around a streetlight pole and Chat Noir’s legs in a way that would, hopefully, stop him from hitting the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry I took too long. Again.” She says, somewhat ashamed.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s fine LB. Say, have I ever told you how you turn my world upside down?” Chat Noir jokes as he was hanging upside down from the pole.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, you think you’re quite the jokester, aren’t you? Here’s a tip. You should try to work on your comedic timing some more, ‘cause right now is really not the best time to be joking around. And I might be the only one, but personally I think that jokes are better if they’re timed right.” She says, carefully lowering him from the pole.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought the timing was okay, seeing how I was hanging upside down.” Chat Noir says, pushing himself up from the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“Chat, what happened?” Ladybug asks, seeing a mark on his cheek. She can feel Tikki’s worry at the site of the mark as well.</p><p> </p><p>“Huh? Oh, that. It’s nothing. I fell earlier, that’s all. Now. Aren’t we going to take care of them?” Chat Noir says nervously, hoping that she wouldn’t say anything more about it.</p><p> </p><p>“Trying to take them down one by one is useless. If we’re going to stop them, our best bet would be going straight to the source of the problem.” Ladybug says, pointing to a TV store where the TVs on display in the window were showing news feed of the original Stoneheart as he climbs up the Eiffel Tower.</p><p> </p><p>Mentally, she made a note to ask Tikki if the two of them are thinking the same thing about the mark.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“I demand my daughter’s safe return!” They hear the mayor command into a megaphone to Stoneheart.</p><p> </p><p>“You want her? You’re welcome to her!” Stoneheart says, throwing Chloe towards them.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>She may be a bully, but I’m not about to let her die on my watch!</em>’ Ladybug thinks as she swings forward to catch Chloe.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t promise.” Chloe says as Ladybug puts her down, confusing the spotted girl.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re clear to attack!” Ladybug hears a cop, one she recognizes as Sabrina’s father, say.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, don’t! If you attack then it will only make things worse!” Ladybug warns them.</p><p> </p><p>“I have a new plan, unlike you. You’ve already messed up once already. I’m not about to risk them multiplying like last time you and your partner made a poor attempt at helping.”Officer Raincomprix says.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s right, you know.” She says to her partner, hearing Chat Noir land next to her. “If I had just remembered to capture the Akuma the first time, then none of this would have happened. I knew I wasn’t the right one for the job, but my Kwami kept insisting that I am and I guess that a part of me wanted to believe that there was a chance I could help out instead of making things worse for once.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, don’t you dare listen to what that cop has to say. I don’t think I would be able to imagine anyone else as my partner other than you. Besides, the way I see it, if it weren’t for you, then she’d no longer be here.” He says, pointing to Chloe. “Without us, they won’t be able to defeat him and we’ll prove it to them. Trust me on this, okay?” Chat Noir says, pulling Ladybug into a hug in an attempt to cheer her up.</p><p> </p><p>After a bit Ladybug says “Alright. I’ll try.” as she pulls away from the hug, right as Stoneheart starts coughing.</p><p> </p><p>“Ivan!” They hear Mylene call out as Stoneheart falls onto his back. A hoard of black and purple butterflies fly out of his mouth before forming the shape of someone’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“People of Paris. Listen carefully. I am Hawkmoth. Ladybug, Chat Noir, hand over your Miraculouses to me. You’ve caused enough damage to this city and its people already!”</p><p> </p><p>“Nice try, Hawkmoth, but we know who the real villain is!” Chat Noir says, mock clapping. “If it weren’t for your doing, then Stoneheart wouldn’t exist and we wouldn’t have had to show up in the first place!”</p><p> </p><p>He’s about to continue talking to the butterfly head when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks over and sees Ladybug giving him a small smile.</p><p> </p><p>“No matter how long it takes, we will find you and <em>you</em>will have to hand <em>your</em>Miraculous over to us!” Ladybug finishes, opening up her yoyo and capturing the butterflies that formed Hawkmoth’s face one swing at a time. Once all the butterflies are in the yoyo, Ladybug points towards one of the Eiffel Tower platforms, indicating him to follow her up there.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me make this promise clear to all of you! No matter who tries to harm you, Ladybug and Chat Noir will be there to keep you safe for as long as we’re able!” Ladybug says from the same platform Mylene and Stoneheart were on. She runs a finger down the middle of her yoyo, making it open, releasing the now-purified Akumas inside.</p><p> </p><p>“Woah.” Chat Noir says in awe, watching as hundreds to thousands of pure white butterflies fly out of Ladybug’s yoyo.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, Hawkmoth. You’ll never take Mylene away from me!” Ladybug hear Stoneheart say. Turning around, they see him grab Mylene as he stands back up.</p><p> </p><p>“Help me!” Mylene calls to them as Stoneheart starts climbing higher up the Eiffel Tower.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re surrounded. What are we supposed to do now?” Chat Noir asks as the two of them get surrounded by the Stoneheart copies.</p><p> </p><p>“By using our powers. Your Kwami told you what to do this time, correct?” Ladybug asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. You want me to call it out now?” Chat Noir asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Not yet. I’ll let you know when.” Ladybug says before calling for her Lucky Charm.</p><p> </p><p>“A parachute? Okay, I think I actually have a good idea what this is for this time.” Ladybug says, looking up at how high Stoneheart had climbed with Mylene.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, thanks to last time, we know where his Akuma is hiding. In an object inside the same hand he’s been holding Mylene in.” She says, putting the parachute on her back in a way similar to a backpack.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s going to help us how?” Chat Noir asks.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s in love with her, which is pretty obvious based off of some of the stuff he’s been saying about not wanting to be separated from her, and something tells me that she might feel the same way. So all we need to do is bring them closer together! They’re made for one another, but they just don’t know it yet!” Ladybug says before starting her climb up as her first warning goes off.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m still not entirely sure what you have planned, but I’m going to trust whatever it is you have in mind.” Chat Noir says as he follows after her. He has a feeling that this is how the dynamic between the two of them is going to stay.</p><p> </p><p>“Help! I’m scared of heights!” Mylene calls out, seeing the duo climbing up after her and Stoneheart.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry, everything’s going to be alright!” Ladybug calls up to the scared girl.</p><p> </p><p>“How exactly are you planning on getting them closer than they already are?” Chat Noir asks, a bit worried.</p><p> </p><p>“By using our powers. On my signal. Get ready!” Ladybug says, placing her feet securely against the platform and throwing her yoyo so it was wrapped around Stoneheart’s hand and the back of his neck in a way that would pull his hand, and by extension Mylene, closer to his face once she pulled. Hopefully, it would end up with Stoneheart and Mylene kissing, making Stoneheart’s hand open up enough to drop the object..</p><p> </p><p>She then places a foot against a beam before pulling as hard as she can, the wire ending with the two of them kissing like she’d wanted.</p><p> </p><p>“Chat, the paper! Hit it back up here!” Ladybug says, seeing that her plan to get Stoneheart to let go of the Akumatized object had worked.</p><p> </p><p>“Batter up!” He says, throwing the paper ball up and using his baton to hit the paper ball up like a baseball and bat.</p><p> </p><p>“Home run!” She says, catching it and tearing it, glad that this paper hadn’t had stone surrounding it like the last time.</p><p> </p><p>“Time to de-evilize.” She says, opening up her yoyo.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, crap!” She says, seeing how Stoneheart had turned back into Ivan and now him and Mylene were falling.</p><p> </p><p>“Chat, your power! Now! You grab Ivan, I’ll grab Mylene!” She says, quickly catching the butterfly before jumping off the tower.</p><p> </p><p>As she was falling, she sees how Chat Noir had used his power, Cataclysm, to rust his baton stuck to the Eiffel Tower before catching Ivan.</p><p> </p><p>“I got you! Hold on tight.” Ladybug says, catching Mylene and opening up the parachute, right as her earrings beeped their second warning.</p><p> </p><p>Mylene collapses on the ground, crying out of both fear and relief as soon as they land back down on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“Good bye, little papillon.” Ladybug says, releasing the now pure white butterfly from her yoyo.</p><p> </p><p>Looking up, she sees how Chat Noir and Ivan are still stuck on the pole, so she throws her yoyo up so it wraps itself around the rusted baton.</p><p> </p><p>“Think the two of you could slide down?” She calls up, watching in relief as they both manage to safely slide down the yoyo wire.</p><p> </p><p>With all four of them safe on the ground, she moves to wrap up the parachute so it will be easier for her to throw into the air. When she finishes wrapping it up, she throws it into the air and calls out “Miraculous Ladybug!”</p><p> </p><p>“Woah. Ladybug, are you seeing this?” Chat Noir says, seeing all the glowing, semitransparent ladybugs fly around, fixing all the damage that was done in both the fights as they go.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. It’s beautiful and amazing!”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s miraculous!” They say at the same time, before laughing at themselves.</p><p> </p><p>“We did it! We did it, we did it, we did it! I can’t believe we did it!” Ladybug says, jumping around laughing before wrapping her arms around Chat Noir’s neck in a hug.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we did.” Chat Noir says, accepting the hug.</p><p> </p><p>“I think there’s something the two of you need to talk about.” Ladybug says, turning towards Ivan and Mylene after pulling out of her and Chat Noir’s hug.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, um… I...” Ivan says, struggling to think of what to say.</p><p> </p><p>Noticing a ball of white paper on the ground, Ladybug picks it up and carefully uncrumbles it before reading it. Realizing that it must have been the lyrics he’d written for her, she holds it out to Mylene and says “Maybe it will help if you read this.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mylene, you are my oxygen, you are the most beautiful of school girls. You are stronger than an oak, even when others put you down. Would you like to be my queen? Answer my, my Mylene and I promise that you won’t be sorry.” Mylene reads off the paper.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, wow. Do you really feel that way about me?” She asks, looking up at Ivan. He nodshis head yes, looking terrified about how she would react.</p><p> </p><p>“What you wrote is really beautiful, it’s just a shame that I wasn’t able to understand it when you screamed… Um, I mean when you sang them earlier.” She says.</p><p> </p><p>“It scared you, didn’t it. Is that why you ran out like you did?” He asks, feeling terrible when she nods yes.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, Mylene. I promise I’ll try not to scare you like that again.”</p><p> </p><p>“Those two are made for each other, aren’t they?” Ladybug asked, seeing as how Mylene and Ivan hug.</p><p> </p><p>“Sort of like how us two were made to be each other’s partners, right?” Chat Noir asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Something like that. Now I don’t know about you, but we should probably get going.” Ladybug said as her third warning goes off. “I’ll be seeing you next time, Chat!”</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t wait, M’lady.” He says, watching as she swings off before heading home himself, glad that his baton was back in it’s spot at his back, no longer rusted to the tower.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“…and by the time I made it to the Eiffel Tower, it was all over!” Alya says to Marinette, finishing the story she’d been telling her as they near the school steps.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry, Alya. Something tells me that you’ll get your scoop eventually.” Marinette says, her eyes drifting to the silver car parked out front of the school.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>That looks like the same car that drove that boy off two days ago. Maybe he’s allowed to come here now?</em>’ Marinette thinks, trying to see if she could spot anyone inside the car from the school steps. She gives up after realizing that the windows are tinted too dark for her to get a good view inside.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh! I know what my next target should be! Ladybug: An exclusive interview! Or even better! Finding out who’s really behind that mask!” Marinette hears Alya say.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, good luck with that one!” Marinette says, remembering how Tikki told her that the chances of someone finding out her and Chat Noir’s identity was slim to none unless they were to see one of them transform.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>However, the interview doesn’t really seem like a bad idea.</em>’ Marinette thinks, following her friend into the school. ‘<em>After all, I did kind of promise her one yesterday.</em>’</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Y<em>ou disobeyed me, Adrien. Take a good look at that school.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, Father.” Adrien says, taking a glance at the school.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>You will never, and I mean never, go there...</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Father, no!” Adrien says, turning to face the screen built into the back of the passenger seat that his father was current being shown on.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Don’t cut me off! I wasn’t finished.</em>” He says angrily, making Adrien flinch at the tone of his voice.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>You will never go back there again unless your bodyguard drives you. You start there in two weeks. Nathalie is already working on adjusting your schedule for when you start.</em>” *4</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, Father. Thank you, Nathalie!” Adrien says as the video call with his father ends. He turns around to look out the back window of the car. Unlike the last two times, this time he was happy, knowing that he would be going back there soon.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Alya, wait.” Marinette says, seeing how Alya was moving to sit in the same seats as yesterday. “Come on.”<br/><br/>“I see what you’re doing, girl.” Alya says, moving to sit next to Marinette, who had reclaimed her regular seat.</p><p> </p><p>“Excuse me! You’re in the wrong seat. Go on, get lost!” Chloe says, pointing towards the seats she’d forced them to sit in yesterday.</p><p> </p><p>“All that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” Marinette says, quoting what Alya had told her on the first day of school.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chloe asks.</p><p> </p><p>“What it means is that I’m done putting up with your crap, Chloe. I’ve put up with it long enough and I’m sick of it. So go on, Chloe, and beat it!” Marinette says getting in the blonde’s face as she points to the seats her and Alya had sat in.</p><p> </p><p>“Good job!” Alya says, as the other students either laugh or cheer at the fact that, for the first time that any of them could remember, someone had the courage to stand up to Chloe.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh! Here. I finished reading it.” Marinette says, pulling the comic Alya had lent her out of her backpack.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you like it?” Alya asks.</p><p> </p><p>“It was alright. Not as cool as the fact that we have heroes here though.” Marinette says as their teacher walks in, beginning their classes for the day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*1 I read in a fic where this happened. The person that did it chose Robin Hood as a Fox because of how he was an actual fox in Disney’s animated movie. I think it actually fits him though.<br/>*2 Adrien doesn’t feel Plagg’s emotions yet. It takes longer with him because of how his mom had been using a broken Miraculous.<br/>*3 He has no problem causing physical harm to Adrien, as shown in Chat Blanc. He doesn’t deserve the title of Father, let alone the right to be a parent. Screw him!<br/>*4 I’m trying to avoid the existence of the love square as much as I can in this. That’s why I didn’t have Chat Noir say “Whoever’s under the mask, I love that girl” or however that line goes. It’s also why I didn’t have Adrien go to school on the second day like he did in canon, and why I’m delaying his arrival to the school by two weeks.</p><p>Since I finished both parts of Stoneheart, I feel the need to mention that I’ll be considering having Marinette and/or Adrien date other people they’re shipped with before they eventually end up with each other. Like in the show, the two of them getting together is the endgame.<br/>Do NOT be trying to request ships for me to do. I’m only comfortable writing ships if I like them together, so there will be some that I won’t be doing. One of these is Lukanette. I’m just not a huge fan of the two of them together.<br/>Some of the ships I am comfortable enough to try writing are Marigami and Alyanette, as a couple of examples.</p><p>Next Akuma is Princess Fragrance, purely because I want to get that one done as soon as I can. I already figured out the order for the next 30-something Akumas, for anyone wondering.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Princess Fragrance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You know those two nameless characters I've been having pop up? I reveal who they are in this chapter. I'm not gonna lie, it's way sooner than I'd originally planned, but it's thanks to some ideas I got while writing.</p><p>Edit 11/20/2020: I found a spot in this chapter that said Marinette was covering her face with the helmet she had in canon, instead of the face mask I'd given her. If there's any other areas where I did this, please let me know so I can fix it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>Ladybug and Chat Noir have once again saved the city of Paris. Jean Duparc was Akumatized into the Magician of Misfortune, threatening to make the Eiffel Tower vanish in a cloud of smoke after-</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s quite enough of that. Now, how about you fill me in on what I’ve missed while I was gone?” A dark haired woman hears from behind her as she sees her TV turn off.</p><p> </p><p>Looking behind her, she sees a blond haired man holding the TV remote in his hand, a smug look on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re back early!” She says,as he jumps over the back of he couch before pulling her onto his lap.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. I don’t know why I decided to visit them in the first place with how stuck up they all are.” He says, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Plus, I missed you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Like you were much better when we first met.” She reminds him.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well at least <em>I</em>managed to break away from the mindset they have. I have you to thank for that.”The grey eyed man says, pressing a kiss onto her cheek.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki, you don’t look so good. Are you feeling okay?” Marinette asks, noticing how her Kwami was more of a pinkish color than her usual red after detransforming.</p><p> </p><p>“I need you to take me to a doctor.” Tikki says, wrapping herself up in a pink and black scarf Marinette was working on for herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Where am I going to find a doctor for Kwamis? You told me yourself that you’re supposed to stay a secret.” Marinette asks, unsure if she should really trust her Kwami’s judgment in the state she’s in.</p><p> </p><p>“I know a man that’s helped out Miraculous users for years. If anyone will be able to help, it’s him.” Tikki says, trying to burry herself deeper into the scarf.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright. But I’ll have to take you after school. I’m late enough as it is, and if I end up missing a whole class they’ll tell my parents.”Marinette says.She thenstartsto get dressed for the day with a yawn, having been woken up by the Akuma at four in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry Tikki, I truly am. If it’s not too far, I might be able to take you there during my lunch break. How does that sound?” Marinette asks Tikki, pulling on a pair of white tights underneath a fuzzy pink skirt that her mom had once compared to cotton candy.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright. I think I might be able to wait a little longer.” Tikki says eyes drifting shut, exhausted from all her shivering.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Tikki. Have you seen my black boots?” Marinette asks, digging through her closet.</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki?” She asks, looking up towards her bed after not getting any response. Worried, she climbs up to her bed and sees the spotted Kwami fast asleep in a bundle of pink and black knitted yarn on her nightstand.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>I’ll just wake her up when she has to climb into my purse for school.</em>’ Marinette thought, gently kissing the spot on Tikki’s forehead before bending down to search under her bed.</p><p> </p><p>“There you are.” Marinette says, pulling out the boots she was looking for before beginning her search for a thicker purse than the one she usually uses, remembering how hard her little Kwami friend was shivering.</p><p> </p><p>After finding one, she pulls a piece of fabric out of her scrap box left over from a winter coat she’d made. She cuts a piece off big enough for a large Kwami-sized blanket.</p><p> </p><p>She pulls her hair half up before carefully nudging Tikki awake.</p><p> </p><p>“Here, try wrapping yourself in this instead.” She says, holding out the cloth to Tikki. The Kwami slowly pulls herself out of the unfinished scarf before crawling her way onto Marinette’s hand andgratefully wrapping herself in the cloth. Marinette carefully sets the Kwami into the purse before grabbing her backpack and heading down to the bakery. She grabs some of the softest cookies she can find, unsure if Tikki’s able to eat anything other than cookies to get her energy back while also keeping in mind how it might be kind of difficult for Tikki to eat her regular cookies.</p><p> </p><p>With that done, she heads to school.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Combustion is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidant. Usually an atmospheric oxygen -” Ms. Mendeleiv says, stoping her speech after hearing someone watching a video in the back of her class.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Today Prince Ali, </em><em>heir to the kingdom of Achu will do the honors during his official Parisian visit by hosting a toy fundraiser for the sick children at the Saint </em><em>Margret Children's hospital.</em>” Mendeleiv heard from the phone. *1</p><p> </p><p>“Miss Lavillant! Hand over your phone this instant!” Ms. Mendeleiv says, realizing that the sound was coming from the back row where a pink clad, blonde haired girl sat next to a dark haired, black and purple clad girl.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes ma’am.” Rose says embarrassed, beforewalking almost shamefullyto the front of the classroom and placing her phone on the teacher’s desk.</p><p> </p><p>“Serves you right! Maybe you wouldn’t have gotten in trouble if you had put in a pair of earbuds. Oh, wait. You probably don’t have the money to buy any!” Chloe says as her and Sabrina laugh.</p><p> </p><p>“Since you can’t watch him on your phone, why don’t you write him a letter instead?” Juleka asks her friend after she sits back down next to her in a whispered tone so the teacher wouldn’t hear her.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s a great idea!” Rose says excitedly, in a level slightly louder than Juleka’s before pulling out a piece of floral pink paper.</p><p> </p><p>“Eeak!” Marinette squeals, almost face planting onto the classroom floor after running into the classroom.</p><p> </p><p>“Miss Dupain-Cheng. Nice of you to join us, even if it is almost the end of class.” Mendeleiv says, glaring at the dark haired girl.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so sorry, Ms Mendeleiv. I really am.” Marinette says, cowering under the purple haired teacher’s glair.</p><p> </p><p>“Just sit down and Miss Lavillant, hand over that perfume bottle this instant!” Mendeleiv says, running over to where Rose and Juleka aresitting.</p><p> </p><p>I don’t understand. It’s just perfume.” Rose says, handing over the bottle.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, but there’s the fact that some people can have allergies to it. And then there’s the fact that it’s flammable. Watch what could happen when you play with flammable substances in a science lab.” Mendeleiv says, spraying the perfume a few times over an unlit torch before covering the area with a glass tube and turning the flame on. All the students scream in fright as the flame inside explodes, turning the whole inside of the tube black.</p><p> </p><p>“Just make sure you all remember that in the future. Tomorrow I’ll be quizzing every one of you on Lab Safety, since <em>clearly</em>some of you hadn’t payed full attention when I told you at the beginning of the school year. Class dismissed!”</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, Marinette. Don’t sweat about showing up late for class. You can borrow my notes so you can catch up with what you missed today.” Alya offersas all the students leavethe school for their lunch break, her and Marinette coming out of Language Arts.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks, Alya, but I can’t right now. I promised Papa I’d pick some things up for him during lunch. Maybe you could come after school and spend the night? I mean, it is a Friday and my parents have been wanting to meet you.” Marinette says, remembering the promise she made Tikki that morning.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t see why not. What time do you think would be okay for me to come over?” Alya asks as they started heading down the steps.</p><p> </p><p>“Does six or seven sound alright?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds fine to me. You live in an apartment above the bakery across the street from here, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yep! That’s my parents bakery actually. They opened it a couple of weeks after getting engaged to each other.”</p><p> </p><p>“So that’s why the symbol on the box you brought on the first day looked familiar!” Alya says as her phone goes off.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry girl, I have to go. My mom needs me to keep an eye on my little sisters during lunch. Otherwise I would offer to help you out with whatever it is your dad needed you to get. Apparently the babysitter got fed up with them.” Alya says annoyed, reading a text off her phone from her mom.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s alright. I can manage by myself.” Marinette says, glad that she didn’t have to find an excuse for Alya to not come with her.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought I’d never be able to ditch her.” Marinette says, watching as Alya walksaway. Looking around to make sure no one was looking, she opensher purse to check on Tikki.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you alright, Tikki?” Marinette asks, taking a look at the Kwami inside.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve been better.” Tikki says, before letting out a sneeze that sounded like a little squeak.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, Tikki. I should have taken you before school like you’d asked.” Marinette says, realizing that Tikki seems to look a bit paler than that morning.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t blame yourself, Marinette. I’ll be fine. You’ll see. Now, let’s go find the person I told you about.”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright.” Marinette says before tripping down the steps at the school’s entrance, right as she was getting ready to close her purse back up.</p><p> </p><p>“I got you!” Marinette hears someone say, before that person ended up falling as well, not strong enough to stop both of them from falling.</p><p> </p><p>“Ugh, my head.” Marinette says, bringing her hand to the spot that hit the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps, feeling a bit disoriented.Looking next to her, she saw a dark haired boy sitting back up too.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m guessing you’re the one that tried to catch me?” She asks, earning a shy nod from him. Checking the fingers she’d touched the aching part of her head with, she sighed in relief at the lack of blood.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks for trying anyway. I’m Marinette. What’s your name?” She asks, helping him up.</p><p> </p><p>“Marc.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it’s nice to meet you. Oh shoot! Your nose is bleeding. Hold up, I have some tissues in my purse.” Marinette says, noticing the red liquid coming out from his nose. Looking into her purse, she sees that there<em>are</em>tissues like she’d said, but there was also a little red and black being missing from inside.</p><p> </p><p>“Here you go. I’m sorry about your nose, but right now I really need to go.” She says, handing him the tissues before looking around in a panic.</p><p> </p><p>“Marinette, wait. Uh… Some of my blood got on the back of your shirt somehow, so here. You can just give it back on Monday if you want.” He says, taking off his red hoodie before handing it to her, revealing that he’s wearing a rainbow stripped long sleeve under a black short sleeve.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s really not necessary I live above the bakery across the street, although I am grateful for the offer though. Knowing my luck, I’d probably lose your jacket by then.” Marinette says in a panic, seeing what Chloe had just picked up.</p><p> </p><p>“Chloe wait, that’s mine!” She says, running towards the limo Chloe always rides in.</p><p> </p><p>“Not any more! Haven’t you ever heard of finders keepers?” Chloe says, before slamming the limo door shut.</p><p> </p><p>“No!” She yells as the limo drove off too fast for her to run after it.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m coming Tikki.” Marinette says, planning on grabbing her bike. There was only one place she could think of Chloe going, the Hotel.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Probably a good thing if I change while I’m at it.</em>’ She thinks, looking at her skirt and remembering the blood on the back of her shirt. *2</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>After arriving in her room, Marinette quickly rips off her boots, replacing her skirt with the first pair of shorts she could find, and throws on the first jacket she can get her hands on to cover the blood Marc had left on her back, before quickly putting the boots back on.</p><p> </p><p>“Just in case.” She says, grabbing a black mask that hooks onto her ears and covers the bottom half of her face. *3</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Hello. I’m in the same class as Chloe Bourgeois and I really need to see her for something.” Marinette</p><p>says to the hotel’s doorman after chaining her bike to a nearby streetlight pole.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you a friend of hers?” He asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Um, no actually. The only person I think is even close to being her friend is Sabrina Raincomprix. It’s just that we’re working on a school assignment together and agreed to work on it here.” She says, resisting the urge to yell that there’s no way she can see herself being friends with the blonde. Not with how the girl is.</p><p> </p><p>“Ha! Miss Bourgeois would have told me if she was expecting anyone from her school.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m guessing this means you won’t let me in?” She asks.</p><p> </p><p>“No!” He says, pushing her away hard enough that she lands on the ground near the alleyway the hotel tends to keep its trashcan in. She spots a motorcycle helmet and an empty pizza box. For a bit, she considers wearing the helmet as a way to cover her face and try to get into the hotel by saying that Chloe had ordered pizza.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>There’s no way that could actually work. He might recognize my outfit or ask to see what kind of pizza Chloe had supposedly ordered. Besides, who knows where that helmet has been. </em><em>Not to mention the fact that Chloe doesn’t like pizza</em><em>.</em>’ Marinette thinks, remembering all the times the blonde had demanded the teacher allow her to order sushi or some other food for herself instead when . Looking around the alley for any other possible way for her to get into the building, she sees a fire escape. She notices how there’s a window a couple floors up that appears to be cracked open a bit.</p><p> </p><p>Knowing that she can’t risk anyone recognizing her, by the chance that someone will call the cops and accuse her of stealing Tikki – and knowing Chloe, she’s very likely to do that – or the even slimmer chance that someone who knows what a Kwami is happens to be present.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m an idiot.” She says, smacking herself in the face as she remembers the mask she’d grabbed from her room.</p><p> </p><p>After pulling the mask on, she pulls the fire escape ladder down and starts making her way up. When she makes it to the ladder, she slips her fingers through the crack and pushes the window open.</p><p> </p><p>Once she manages to climb through the window, she lands in one of the hotel’s hallways. Looking around, she notices some folded blankets on a cart. She grabs one of the blankets and wraps it around her torso in a way that would cover her shirt without getting in the way if she finds the need to fight, before tying two of the corners together so it would stay like that. Hearing a ding indicating an elevator opening, Marinette looks over and sees Chloe going inside.</p><p> </p><p>“Chloe, wait!” Marinette calls, seeing Tikki in the blonde’s hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Get away from me, weirdo!” Chloe says, repeatedly pushing one of the buttons in an attempt to get the elevator doors to close faster.</p><p> </p><p>“Dang it!” Marinette yells when the doors closes before she’s able to reach.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve taken it upon myself to organize a lavish firework display on the Seine river, in honor of you, your highness. They will be displayed from the barge you can see down there.” Andre Bourgeois tells Prince Ali, pointing out one of the hotel windows to a boat they could see on the river.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, sir. Or rather, how is it said in your language? Totally awesome!” The Prince says. Chloe fights back an annoyed look, hearing him use the phrase ‘totally awesome’.</p><p> </p><p>“We shall have to see if it fits in with the Prince’s busy schedule. We have very little time for festivities because of how many responsibilities his highness has.” Prince Ali’s chaperone says, as Chloe clears her throat.</p><p> </p><p>“Prince Ali, allow me to introduce you to my own princess, Chloe.” The mayor says, placing a hand on his daughter’s back.</p><p> </p><p>“Forgive me if I have been misinformed, but I was under the impression that France hasn’t had a royal ruler for over two hundred years.” Prince Ali says, confused.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s correct. I just like to call her my princess as a term of endearment. Lots of parents call their children their prince or princess for that reason.” Mayor Bourgeois says.</p><p> </p><p>“Prince Ali, I brought you a special stuffed toy for the sick children.” Chloe says, handing the Kwami to him.</p><p> </p><p>Prince Ali looks at Tikki in awe before saying “Whoa, I’ve never seen a toy like this before. This is very kind of you!”</p><p> </p><p>“You flatter me, Prince. Yes, I suppose it was very kind of me, wasn’t it?” Chloe asks him.</p><p> </p><p>“Why yes. That is what I just said, isn’t it? Do you have a problem hearing, or had I not been clear with what I was saying? If the problem is my fault, I am sorry. After all, I am still learning French so there’s a chance I might not be very good at the language just yet.” Prince Ali says, genuinely confused. Chloe just lets out a nervous laugh has her eye twitches, from the annoyance she feels towards the Prince as he places Tikki in his shirt pocket.</p><p> </p><p>“Nadja Chamack. Don’t be bemused, it’s just the news!” A reporter says, as she approaches the Prince. “Prince Ali, do you have anything to say about your official Parisian visit?” she asks, as the elevator behind them dings. Marinette, who has just snuck into the room, looks towards the elevator and her eyes widen in fear and shock at the girl standing there. Green skin, pink hair that appears to have been pulled up into a bun, a silver tiara on her head, a dress that seems to be a mix of the type of dress a fairytale princess would wear mixed with modern style, and underneath seem to be dark blue, almost black tights that seem to fade down into purple shoes. Someone had gotten Akumatized. *4</p><p> </p><p>“I am quite happy to be here.” Prince Ali tells Nadja Chamack.</p><p> </p><p>Marinette can’t do anything but watch as the Akuma aims what looks like a perfume bottle at Chloe and fires.</p><p> </p><p>“Uuhh… Where’s that smell coming from?” Nadja asks. “It smells almost like rotten fish!”</p><p> </p><p>Nadja, the Prince, his chaperone, and the mayor all turn to look at Chloe.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you looking at me for? It’s not me!” Chloe says, before taking a sniff of her jacket. “It… oh, gross! It is me!” she says, disgusted.</p><p> </p><p>Although Marinette’s glad that the Akuma only made Chloe smell like rotten fish, she still covers her mouth and nose with part of the sheet she’d tied around herself when she sees that she’s firing off her perfume bottle again. A pink mist coming out from it.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>At your service Princess Fragrance.</em>” the paparazzi in the room sing out. Marinette feels a wave of annoyance, realizing that she’s going to have to not only deal with the Akuma, Princess Fragrance, being able to make people her minions, but also have to deal with them singing every word that comes out of their mouth.</p><p> </p><p>“Who are you?” Prince Ali asks, frightened.</p><p> </p><p>“My name is Princess Fragrance, and I’ve come just for you!” She says, curtsying to the Prince. “Thanks to the little butterfly talking in my head, with just a spritz of my perfume you’ll be all mine!”</p><p> </p><p>Looking around, Marinette sees a control panel. She sees a button labeled ‘confetti’ and presses it, hoping that will give the Prince, along with everyone else in the room, a chance to escape.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Plagg, let’s go! There’s trouble in Paris!” Adrien says, running around his room as he searches for Plagg, having seen the Akumatized person take control over the paparazzi.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m still chewing!” He hears Plagg say. Looking at where the Kwami’s voice came from, Adrien sees his trashcan.</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t have time for that! You can finish eating later.” Adrien says, prying the Kwami out by the tail before calling for his transformation.</p><p> </p><p>“Quickly, Prince! This way!” Mayor Bourgeois says, leading the group towards a stairwell. Marinette follows after them, not wanting to risk losing site of Tikki. They run down a few sets of stairs before the mayor leads them into a separate room.</p><p> </p><p>“We should be safe in here. It’s a panic room I built in case the hotel were to ever get attacked.” He says, closing the doors behind the group, minus Marinette.</p><p> </p><p>Both the Prince and his chaperone step away from Chloe before the chaperone says “So much chaos! How is anyone supposed to stick to a schedule around here?” as Marinette looks in a nearby supply closet for anything she can use against the Akumatized person.</p><p> </p><p>“Daddy, what is that?” Chloe says, pointing to a pink fog drifting into the room from the bottom of the door.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>My Prince, my Prince, smell the fragrance of my eternal love!</em>” Princess Fragrance sings, spraying near the bottom of the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Get back!” Mayor Bourgeois yells, pushing the other three back.</p><p> </p><p>Feeling a breeze at her side, Princess Fragrance looks over and sees someone with a sheet wrapped around her torso and a mask covering the bottom half of her face, directing a fan to blow the perfume away.</p><p> </p><p>“Who the heck are you supposed to be?!” Princess Fragrance asks, angrily. She doesn’t get a response from Marinette.</p><p> </p><p>Opening the door to peek around, Andre Bourgeois sees Marinette and, assuming she’s Akumatized as well, he says “Oh no. There’s two of them. Run!” motioning for the other three that had gone into the panic room to hurry out.</p><p> </p><p>“You can not escape my perfume!” Princess Fragrance yells angrily, as she starts spraying as much as she can while spinning around.</p><p> </p><p>Marinette quickly ducks into a service elevator and uses it to make her way to the first floor, while Mayor Bourgeois holds a stairwell door open saying “Go, go, go!” The other three mange to go into the stairwell and run down to the hotel’s dining hall, meeting the Bourgeois family butler on their way in. Andre Bourgeois ends up breathing in some of the perfume, falling under Princess Fragrance’s control before he gets a chance to close the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Get them.” She demands him, none of them noticing Marinette ducking under a table.</p><p> </p><p>“Quick! Close the door on him! He’s under her control!” Chloe commands Jean Claude.</p><p> </p><p>“But that’s your father!” The Prince’s escort says, shocked as the butler shuts the door on Andre.</p><p> </p><p>“He’s being controlled by a supervillain, so the fact that he’s my father isn’t a priority! Me making sure that he doesn’t grab me and make me work for that fashion disaster is!” Chloe yells, as they hear the elevator ding open. Looking over, they see pink mist coming out of it. Chloe, Prince Ali, his escort and Marinette take off. Jean, who was practically right next to the elevator, falls under Princess Fragrance’s control.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Come into my arms, my sweet Prince!</em>” Princess Fragrance sing, as Chat Noir slips into the room.</p><p> </p><p>“Pee-ew! Can we get a little fresh air in here? Something smells, and I know it’s not me.” Chat Noir says, using his staff to push Princess Fragrance away from Prince Ali.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s her fault I smell like this!” Chloe yelled, the same time Princess Fragrance yells “No one will take my prince away from me!”, firing at him. He spins his staff to blow the perfume away, before knocking her towards the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>“Crap!” Marinette exclaims, seeing the Akumatized person flying towards the kitchen doors behind her. She ducks out of the way before pushing some of the tables and chairs in front of the door, trying to slow down her escaping,</p><p> </p><p>“Emergency evacuation! Everyone down now!” Chat Noir says, extending his staff so it touches the ground a couple floors below them, glancing over at Marinette curiously.</p><p> </p><p>“Absolutely not! It’s much to dangerous for Prince Ali to go down that thing!” The Prince’s chaperone says, pulling Prince Ali away from the staff.</p><p> </p><p>“Right. Safety first.” Chat Noir says, shrinking his staff back into a baton. Marinette watches, curious about what he’ll do. He grabs a bowl with handles off of the table that was, thankfully, empty, before using the claws on his gloves to tear off a long piece of table cloth.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey! Do you have any idea how much money that table cloth was?!” Chloe yells, alarmed.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t know, don’t care. It’ll get fixed once me and Ladybug defeat this Akuma, and something tells me that she won’t let the Prince go down this way unless he has something protecting his head.” Chat Noir says, pushing the piece of torn fabric through one handle, over the bottom of the bowl, and pushing it through the other handle, before setting it on the Prince’s head and tying the two ends of fabric together under his chin.</p><p> </p><p>“That good enough?” He asks the Prince’s chaperone.</p><p> </p><p>“Good enough for now.” She says with a sigh.</p><p> </p><p>“Good.” He says, extending his baton long enough for them to slide down it like a Fireman’s pole.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait.” Chat Noir says, placing a hand on the chaperone to stop her from going down for a bit. “Get them into a car and drive off. I’ll be following not far behind you.” Chat Noir tells the chaperone as she’s getting ready to slide down.</p><p> </p><p>“Good thing my car’s parked close by.” She says before sliding down after Prince Ali and Chloe. Seeing the three of them climb into a car, he shrinks his staff back down to it’s normal size before he walks over to Marinette and asks “Who are you, and why are you wearing that helmet?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh… right.” Marinette says, untying the sheet and tossing away from herself after unwrapping it from herself. “It’s me, Ladybug. I can’t transform right now because I ended up losing my Kwami. Chloe found her and gave her to the Prince thinking that she was just a stuffed toy.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you’re really Ladybug, prove it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Was the fact that I mentioned a Kwami really not proof enough for you? I hadn’t even heard of the word until Tikki said it to me.”</p><p> </p><p>“I guess you’re right.” Chat Noir says, rubbing the back of his neck, embarrassed.</p><p> </p><p>Hearing some banging, they look over to the kitchen doors and see the doors, along with the tables and chairs Marinette had used to make a barricade, shaking from Princess Fragrance trying to escape.</p><p> </p><p>“I really hope that will be able to hold her for a bit longer.” Marinette says, worried.</p><p> </p><p>“Hop on my back so we can follow after the Prince and the other two he’s with.”</p><p> </p><p>“How do you know where they went? Even if you know what direction they drove off in, she could have turned at some point.” Marinette points out, climbing onto her partner’s back. She’d come back to the hotel and get her bike back later.</p><p> </p><p>“Fun fact. Our weapons have small trackers in them. When I stopped the woman from going down, I stuck in on her.” He says, going over to the balcony window and jumping onto a nearby rooftop.</p><p> </p><p>“Smart thinking.” She says. On the roof, he pulls up the map on his baton screen.</p><p> </p><p>“Any idea where they might be going? I have no clue.” He says, showing the screen to Marinette.</p><p> </p><p>“The hospital. Saint Margret’s to be exact.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why would they be going there?” He asks, confused.</p><p> </p><p>“It was on the news earlier about how he would be visiting there and his chaperone seems to be pretty strict when it comes to schedules. Knowing that, and seeing what direction they seem to be going, that’s where she’s taking them.” She says, as they see Princess Fragrance burst out of the hotel, heading in the direction of Saint Margret Children’s hospital. “And it seems as if she knows that too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well in that case, we better get going and hope that we find them again before she does.” Chat Noir says, launching the two of them in the hospital’s direction. Marinette tightened her grip around Chat Noir’s torso, not wanting to risk falling off.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Oh no.” Chat Noir and Marinette say at the same time, seeing the chaperone’s car turned over. Princess Fragrance had found them first.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no one in the car. I’ve gotta see if I can find Tikki. She might have fallen out of his pocket.” Marinette says, worried as she climbs off of her partner’s back.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure she fell out?” He asks. He wanted to continue searching for Prince Ali, but at the same time he also wanted to stay behind and help search for his partner’s Kwami. “There’s also the chance that she’s still in his pocket.”</p><p> </p><p>He was quickly proven wrong, at the sound of a small cough and a weak groan coming from inside the car.</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki!” Marinette exclaims, running towards the car. She finds the Kwami on the roof of the overturned car, the red areas of her body now leaning more towards a pink color than a red. She pulls her mask down before carefully scooping up Tikki into her hands, making sure to avoid touching any glass from the broken windows.</p><p> </p><p>“Ma-” Tikki says, only for some bubbles to float from her mouth, making the tiny Kwami cough.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about using my name right now.” Marinette says, pulling the mask back up before climbing out of the car.</p><p> </p><p>“What was with the bubbles?” Chat Noir asks her.</p><p> </p><p>“It stops us from revealing the identities of a previous or current Miraculous user to anyone.” Tikki explains, weakly.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so sorry about this, Tikki. I should have taken you to the healer you told me about this morning, then maybe none of this would have happened.” Marinette says, feeling terrible.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about that right now. You need to transform.”</p><p> </p><p>“No way. You’re way worse than you were this morning, and when I change back from a transformation you’re too weak to float on you’re own. With how bad you are right now, there’s no way I’m gonna risk what a transformation to do to you now.”</p><p> </p><p>“How did she get sick?” Chat Noir asks, somewhat alarmed. Plagg never warned him that it was possible for Kwamis to get sick, leaving him to assume that magical beings like him never got sick.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s probably from us having to fight the Magician of Misfortune in the rain last night.” Marinette says, clutching Tikki close to her chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Plagg was fine. Is it because they represent something different?” Chat Noir asks, curiously.</p><p> </p><p>“It is. Ladybugs are far more sensitive to the cold than cats are. Chat Noir, go to Pont des Arts. That’s where Princess Fragrance took them. I can tell Ladybug where I need her to take me.” Tikki tells him.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure I can’t help the two of you get there faster before going to them?” He asks, wanting to help as much as he can to make sure the little being gets better.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure. You’re not supposed to know where he is until Plagg’s ready to tell you.</p><p> </p><p>“As long as you’re sure.” He says, before taking off towards the place Tikki told him to go.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, where do you need me to go?” She asks, after Chat Noir disappeared from site.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Wang Fu’s massage shop? Tikki, are you sure this is the right place?” Marinette asks.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure. Appearances can be deceiving, never forget that Marinette.” Tikki assures her.</p><p> </p><p>“If you say so.” Marinette says, heading into the shop, bell chiming over her head.</p><p> </p><p>“Master Fu?” Tikki calls the best she can into the shop, alarming Marinette that she’d be willing to let her presence be known like that.</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki, what are you doing here so soon?” Marinette hears, as an elderly guy comes into view. She notices something familiar about him, but doesn’t remember why.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry sir, but you see?” Marinette says, showing Tikki to the man.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh my. Let’s get her to my backroom immediately.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“The Akuma’s been around for an hour. My replacement was seen a few minutes ago. What’s taking yours so long?” The blond man says, annoyed.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you honestly think I know? It could be anything.” The woman says, worried.</p><p> </p><p>“They had to fight in the middle of a rain storm last night. Could that have anything to do with it?” He asks, making his girlfriend’s eyes widen.</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki probably got sick. I’m going to Fu’s. If it’s taking this long for her to get there, she’s probably there right now.” She says, carefully lifting herself off of her spot next to her boyfriend and climbing into her wheelchair that had been sitting next to their couch.</p><p> </p><p>“Want me to come with you, B?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, but only because I know how worried you’d get if I was out there alone with an Akuma running around.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Not to sound impatient, but how much longer will this take?” Marinette asks.</p><p> </p><p>“One who is burning with impatience can never eat hot porridge.” The man, Master Fu according to Tikki, says.</p><p> </p><p>“What does that mean?” She asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Sometimes the wait is worth the outcome. Now, I need silence.” He says. Marinette tries her best to keep quiet, and a few moments later his hands gain a faint glow in a rainbow assortment of colors as they’re hovering over Tikki. She watches in awe as Tikki’s color is being restored to it’s normal coloring, meaning that her health is doing the same. *5 *6</p><p> </p><p>“Her health has been restored.” Master Fu says, the glow disappearing as he folds his hands into his lap. “Next time, bring her here as soon as you notice her health worsening.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you for healing Tikki for me. Is there anything I owe you for it?” Marinette says, as Tikki happily flies circles around her head, even playing a bit in her hair, tickling the back of Marinette’s neck in the process.</p><p> </p><p>“No cost for anything involving the Kwamis or the Miraculous jewels they’re bound to. Now, you better run along and help Chat Noir with the latest Akuma.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh shoot. I almost forgot about that!” Marinette says, running out of the backroom, Tikki flying into her purse on the way. She had just ran out of the door when she trips over something, landing on the ground.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so sorry! That was probably my fault.” She hears a woman say, as a man offers his hand to help her up.</p><p> </p><p>“Nah, it was probably my fault. I trip over stuff all the time.” Marinette says, looking up to see who was holding out his hand to her as she took it. He was blond with gray eyes, and appeared to be at least a foot taller than her, with a slim but muscular build.</p><p> </p><p>“Pretty sure it was my fault. Felix here is always telling me that I have my foot rest out too far.” The woman says. Looking at her, Marinette sees that she has dark hair and blue eyes like herself. Almost like an older version of Marinette, if Marinette’s mom had been of French decent instead of Chinese. And if Marinette were in a wheelchair instead of having full use of her legs.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m Brigette.” The woman says.</p><p> </p><p>“Marinette.” she says, checking to see if Tikki’s still inside her purse. She lets out a sigh of relief seeing that Tikki hadn’t fallen out this time.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so sorry, but I have to go.” Marinette says, before taking off.</p><p> </p><p>“So<em>she’s</em>your replacement.” Felix says, amused after Marinette ran out of earshot. “Either Tikki has a thing for girls with black hair and blue eyes, or Fu’s doing it on purpose.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh hush. As if you and the current Chat Noir don’t both have blond hair.” Brigette says, smacking the side of his leg.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well at least my eyes are gray while his are green.” He says, opening the door for his girlfriend. The two of them planning on checking on the Miraculous’s guardian. *7</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki, I really am so, so, <em>very</em>sorry. You were so sick and I don’t really know what I’d do without you.” Marinette says, handing Tikki one of the soft cookies she’d packed that morning.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, you wouldn’t be Ladybug for one!” Tikki says with a giggle.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah there’s that, but you’re not just a Kwami to me. You’re my friend too.” Marinette says, honesty in her voice as Tikki finishes the cookie.</p><p> </p><p>“Aww, Marinette!” Tikki says, before nuzzling Marinette’s cheek.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh! The Point des Arts bridge! Tikki, you think you’re fine with me transforming?” Marinette asks. Even though Tikki looked fine now, she was still a little wary.</p><p> </p><p>“Yep! I’m all better! Go ahead.” Tikki says, flying in front of Marinette.</p><p> </p><p>“Tikki, spots on!”</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Oh no. Chat.” Ladybug says, crouching on a building near the bridge. She sees that at some point, between when her and Chat Noir separated so she could get Tikki healed and now, he’d fallen under her control.</p><p> </p><p>Feeling Tikki’s guilt, she says “Don’t blame yourself. Even if you were fine and I was there to help him, chances are that she might have gotten control of him anyway.”</p><p> </p><p>She feels Tikki’s guilt lessen, but not go away.</p><p> </p><p>‘<em>Is she trying to marry him?</em>’ Ladybug thinks, seeing the mayor escorting Princess Fragrance towards the middle of the bridge, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. Prince Ali, his chaperone, Chloe, and Chat Noir, all under her control, seem to be waiting for her in the middle.</p><p> </p><p>“Rose!” Ladybug hears someone yell. Looking where the voice came from, she sees a female figure with black and purple hair, dressed in dark clothes. Even though she’s a bit too far away to clearly make out the face, she knows that it’s Juleka. “Stop! You don’t want to do this!” Juleka says, grabbing Princess Fragrance by the arms.</p><p> </p><p>“Rose isn’t here right now, only Princess Fragrance.” She says, ripping her arms out of Juleka’s grasp. “And since she isn’t here right now, that means you have no business telling me what you think I do or don’t want!”</p><p> </p><p>“Normally I try to avoid fighting, but I will fight if it means I get my best friend back.”</p><p> </p><p>Facing Chat Noir, Princess Fragrance sweetly says “Kitty, grab her.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>As you wish, Princess Fragrance.</em>” Chat Noir sings out, before grabbing the Goth girl.</p><p> </p><p>“Chloe, the padlock.” Princess Fragrance says to the blonde girl as Juleka tries to pull her arms out of Chat Noir’s grasp. Chloe picks up a box off of a nearby bench and holds it out to her father. Chloe’s father opens the box, and resting inside is a heart shaped padlock that seems to be made out of the same pink mist that shoots out of Princess Fragrance’s perfume bottle.</p><p> </p><p>“I attach this padlock to the bridge, and it will lock our love for each other together forever.” Princess Fragrance says to Prince Ali, picking the padlock out of the box.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>At your service, Princess Fragrance.</em>” Prince Ali sings in response.</p><p> </p><p>Ladybug is just about to toss her yoyo towards the padlock, out of hopes of knocking it into the Seine river below the bridge, when Juleka stomps on one of Chat Noir’s feet and elbow’s his stomach hard enough to make him loosen his grip on her. Juleka then pushes Chat Noir away, snatches the padlock out of Princess Fragrance’s grasp, and throws it as far into the Seine as she could.</p><p> </p><p>“NO!” Princess Fragrance yells, before shooting Juleka and making her fall under her control. Due to how close the two were when Princess Fragrance shot, Juleka ended up getting knocked down onto the bridge.</p><p> </p><p>“I may not be very happy with you, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have you as my Maid of Honor.” Princess Fragrance says, pulling Juleka up as Ladybug jumps and, thankfully for her, lands on top of a street light only a couple feet away from the group. “After all, Rose was always <em>very fond</em>of you.” Ladybug doesn’t miss how Princess Fragrance gave the taller girl’s lips a glance while saying that.</p><p> </p><p>“Not so fast, you royal pain in the neck!” Ladybug says, pulling Juleka away from Princess Fragrance. Princess Fragrance fires at Ladybug and, seeing the perfume bullet heading her way, she quickly holds her breath. The bullet hits her hard enough to knock her back, off of the streetlight and into the river below.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure you’re ok?” Bridgette asks, setting three cups on his table as Felix sets down the just-warmed tea pot.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m perfectly fine, my dear. But I do have a couple questions I would like to ask.” Master Fu says, filling all three cups half way.</p><p> </p><p>“Which is?” Felix asks, giving Bridgette an ‘oh no’ look, both of them knowing the man long enough to get at least an okay idea at how he is.</p><p> </p><p>“First, why is it that the two of you haven’t gotten engaged yet?” He says, his voice sounding serious. Seeing a panicked doe-eye look on both of them, he laughs, making them realize that he was just messing with the two of them. “I am quite sorry for that, but I couldn’t resist seeing how the two of you would react to that. On a more serious note, what I really wanted to ask is whether or not Felix would be willing to don one of the other Miraculous for this fight. This is the third Akuma the current Ladybug and Black Cat owners have fought, and I fear that Ladybug isn’t quite ready to try fighting them on her own.”</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>Ladybug comes back up out of the Seine, gasping for air. She looks up, planing on using her yoyo to pull herself back up to the bridge, when she sees Princess Fragrance look at her over the railing.</p><p> </p><p>She notices a glowing, purple light in the shape of a butterfly appear in front of her eyes. Ladybug uses that opportunity to swim over to the nearest sidewalk and pull herself onto there.</p><p> </p><p>“Servants, attack her! The pretty butterfly wants her earrings.”</p><p> </p><p>As Chat Noir, the Prince’s chaperone, Juleka, and the two Bourgeois’ start running towards Ladybug, she starts running towards them as well.</p><p> </p><p>She grabs the chaperone and Chloe before hitting their heads together which knocks them out. She makes sure that she doesn’t disturb the scarf that Prince Ali’s chaperon has covering her head, in case she’s wearing it for cultural or religious reasons.</p><p> </p><p>Seeing how the Mayor and Chat Noir, the latter ready to swing at her with his baton, are charging at her from opposite sides, she ducks down at the last moment, causing Chat Noir to hit the mayor in the head hard enough to knock him out.</p><p> </p><p>She notices an empty police car from the corner of her eye and an idea forms in her mind. She quickly ties Juleka and Chat Noir together with her yoyo, before pulling Chat Noir’s baton out of his grip. Her opponents either tied up or unconscious, she peeks into the police car and sees a set of handcuffs, like she’d been hoping. She holds the baton in both of her hands and smashes the end against the window. The glass cracks, but it’s not broken enough for her to get the handcuffs inside. She smashes the baton against the window again, and it goes through. She quickly busts up the rest of the window before tossing the baton onto the ground, and unlocking the car and opening the door so she wouldn’t have to lean into the car through the window area. She grabs the cuffs, goes back to where she has Chat Noir and Juleka tied up, and lets them both out of the yoyo wire.</p><p> </p><p>Juleka and Chat Noir no longer attached to each other, she has just enough time to cuff the Goth girl to a nearby pole before Chat Noir knocks her away.</p><p> </p><p>“Chat! Snap out of it! It’s me, Ladybug! We’re partners, remember?” She says to him dodging every swing he makes at her with his reclaimed baton. Throughout all this time, she hadn’t noticed that Princess Fragrance pulled Prince Ali away. She does, however, notice a giant, pink cloud forming over Paris.</p><p> </p><p>Alarmed, she grabs Chat Noir’s staff when he makes a move to swing at her in a way similar to a baseball player hitting a baseball, and uses the momentum of that swing to throw him over a nearby building.</p><p> </p><p>“Dang it. I better try to finish this up before it all blows up on… me. Blow up!” She says, remembering the demonstration Ms. Mendeleiv had given in class that morning with Rose’s perfume. It had probably been a small flame in comparison to the amount of perfume the teacher had sprayed, but it had still exploded enough to cause the whole tube to turn black. Looking around for anything she might be able to use to make the perfume cloud over Paris explode, she notices a boat on the Seine with a firework’s display on it, waiting to be used.</p><p> </p><p>“That aught to work.” She says. She’s about ready to jump onto the boat when she gets pinned to the ground. She manages to turn around, wanting to see who’s pinning her down, only to realize that it’s Chat Noir getting ready to use Cataclysm on her.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think so!” She hears someone say. Next thing she knows, whoever said that is throwing Chat Noir off of her, knocking him out in the process. Chat Noir lands on the firework’s control panel, setting off the fireworks so they explode the perfume cloud like she’d been wanting to do.</p><p> </p><p>“Who the heck are you?” She asks, pushing herself off the ground as she gets a clear look at who threw her, currently mind controlled, partner off of her. He was taller than her by about a foot, with a blue and green scale-like suit on covering his entire body. She sees a bracelet on his wrist that looks like a snake eating its own tail and a violin on his back.</p><p> </p><p>“I was Chance Noir, the Black Catbefore the one you got paired with. I’m here to help.” The man says.</p><p> </p><p>Looking at him with that information in mind, Ladybug realizes that he looks like he could have been old enough to be Chat Noir’s predecessor. Feeling Tikki being alarmed at the newcomer’s presence, she says “Prove it. Say something that only Lady Luck would know about. I’m not explaining how, but I’ll be able to tell if you’re telling the truth.”</p><p> </p><p>“After she got hurt, Tikki refused to leave her side because, like the rest of us, she blamed herself.” He says. She can feel how Tikki’s happy that he’s telling the truth about his identity, but also sad at whatever memories his proof brought up for the Kwami. Even if she wasn’t able to feel Tikki’s emotions while transformed, she would have at least given the man a chance due to him knowing Tikki’s name.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t realize there was a Snake Miraculous. I only knew of the ones your team had.” Ladybug says.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well Lilith doesn’t get used as often compared do the others.” He says, crossing his arms. *8</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, don’t! What if his Kwami is under her control when they detransform!” She says, noticing what he’s getting ready to do.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, for one, he’s going change back either way. Two, something like this happened to me before when I still had the ring. Plagg was fine even though I was still under our enemy’s control. Three, I’d rather have Chat Noir be whoever his civilian identity is, under an Akuma’s, and by extension Hawkmoth’s, control, than transformed with his power activated while under their control.” He says, before touching the object against the black particles floating around Chat Noir’s hand, before quickly pulling his hand away. “You bust that?” He asks, pointing to the cop car.</p><p> </p><p>“I needed to get the cuffs out to tie her up.” Ladybug explains, pointing to Juleka. He makes his way over to the car before climbing in, looking around for a bit, and coming back out with a second set of handcuffs.</p><p> </p><p>“Lift him by the feet.” He says, grabbing Chat Noir’s arms. She does just that, and he leads her over to the same pole Juleka’s cuffed to, before doing the same to Chat Noir on the same pole in a way that they won’t be able to face each other. “Go up to the roof and don’t look down here, no matter what. I don’t work that well with the Snake, so I’m going to borrow my old one for a bit.”</p><p> </p><p>“Won’t you know who he is then?” She asks, worried. He sighs, before looking around. Seeing that someone had abandoned a stroller, blanket still inside, out of their rush to get away from Princess Fragrance, he grabs the blanket before covering Chat Noir’s face with it.</p><p> </p><p>“Roof. Now. Tikki and Plagg always get two people close in age, meaning there’s a chance the two of you go to the same school. If so, I’m not about to risk there being even a small chance that you’d recognize him by what he’s wearing.”</p><p> </p><p>Figuring that she has no choice but to trust him, she goes up to a nearby roof and sits on top of it in a way that she isn’t able to see them, but she’ll be able to see the transformation lights. Right as she leans against the chimney, she sees a green light with blue undertones,then a neon green light.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“This city isn’t for us. There’s too many people who want to keep us apart. Let’s go away from here, my Prince! <em>Very</em>far!” Princess Fragrance says, trying to pull Prince Ali towards the Le Grand Paris roof exit.</p><p> </p><p>“Leaving so soon? The fun’s just getting started!” She hears. Looking over, she sees Ladybug and someone else next to her, in an outfit similar to Chat Noir’s, yet different enough that you could tell that it was someone else by the suit’s appearance alone. He’s the one that had spoken. The glowing outline of a purple outline quickly appears around her face, then disappears after a bit.</p><p> </p><p>“Chance Noir, Hawkmoth finds you wearing the ring again to be quite the surprise! Apparently he was under the impression that he’d never have to see you again. Especially with someone much younger than you wearing Lady Luck’s earrings.” Princess Fragrance says, placing one hand on her hip with the other still grasping Prince Ali’s arm, a smirk on her face.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well I wouldn’t be wearing it if you hadn’t taken control of my replacement.” He says as Ladybug calls for Lucky Charm.</p><p> </p><p>“Uh… Noir?” Ladybug asks, holding out a deflated, ladybug patterned balloon for Chance Noir to see.</p><p> </p><p>“Look around. See anything you can use?” He asks. She nods and he says “Good.” before starting to fight Princess Fragrance as Ladybug grabbed the object she needed. He was only making a hit towards Princess Fragrance for every few hits she would make herself, keeping in mind that she was only a teenaged girl. Akumatized or not.</p><p> </p><p>“Noir! Cork it!” He hears Ladybug yell. Seeing her throwing something towards him, he catches it and sees how she’d attached the balloon to some tube. He quickly shoves it onto Princess Fragrance’s perfume bottle, right as she was getting ready to spray him. Not having to worry about her shooting anymore perfume, he rips the bottle out of her hand and hands it to Ladybug.</p><p> </p><p>“Wrap her up with your yoyo.” He tells her. She does as he says, trapping her to a spotlight.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait a bit before smashing it. I’m going to return the ring to your partner before everything goes back to how it should be.”</p><p> </p><p>“What do I say if he asks what happened when he was under her control?” She asks, unsure, as Chance Noir heads towards the roof’s ledge.</p><p> </p><p>“Feel free to tell him the truth if you’d like. I see no reason why you should hide this from him.” He says, before stepping off. Ladybug starts to run towards the edge of the roof, to make sure he was okay. She’d only gotten a couple steps when she sees him vault into the air.</p><p> </p><p>Once he’s out of sight, she unwraps Princess Fragrance before quickly smashing the bottle and catching the butterfly in her yoyo.</p><p> </p><p>“How did I get here?” Rose asks.</p><p> </p><p>“You were Akumatized.” She says, as she feels her yoyo vibrate in her hand.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s new.” She says, seeing two phone symbols on the center spot. One green, one red. She taps the green, and the yoyo’s face melts into a screen with Chance Noir’s face on it.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I’m getting ready to change back. You ready to fix everything?</em>” He asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. You want me to wait a bit longer before calling for it?”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>No. Feel free to call for the Miraculous Cure once I hang up. The amount of time it should take to get here should give me enough time to get out of site.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright. Do you think the two of us will have to team up again?” Ladybug asks.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Hopefully not, because it means that something happened to your partner.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright. In that case, goodbye Chance Noir.” Ladybug says.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Goodbye, Ladybug. Hopefully if we meet again, it’s under better circumstances.</em>” He says, before hanging up. Call over, she releases the butterflies once the screen disappears then throws the balloon into the air, calling for the Miraculous Cure.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry about that.” She apologizes to Rose. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened that got you Akumatized?”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a girl at my school, Chloe. She’s mean to everyone. I wrote a letter to give Prince Ali, since he’s here in Paris. I hoped Chloe might give it to him for me, since I knew she was going to see him. She tore it up and said that I’m stupid for thinking he’d talk to someone like me.” Rose said, looking upset.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, you might not have the letter anymore, but the good news is that whatever you’d written you can now say to him in person.” Ladybug says, turning Rose so she could see that Prince Ali was on the roof with them, looking around confused.</p><p> </p><p>~~~~~</p><p> </p><p>“… next thing I know, Ladybug’s turning me around and Prince Ali’s on the roof with us! The two of us talked for a while, and he invited me to visit the hospital with him!” Marinette hears Rose say to Juleka as the three of them are walking into class, Marinette walking a couple feet in front of the two.</p><p> </p><p>“Awesome.” She hears Juleka say amazed. “Rose, wait. Before we go into class… I… there’s something I want to tell you. Something you getting Akumatized, of all things, helped me realize.”</p><p> </p><p>Although Marinette’s curious about what Juleka wants to tell Rose, she walks the rest of the way into class. Based off of how Juleka ran after Akumatized-Rose like she had, and Princess Fragrance’s reaction to it, she figures she has a good idea. She just hopes that things work out well between the two of them.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*1 No idea if this is actually the name of a hospital somewhere, but I figured that having a hospital named after her in the Miraculous world would be a cool thing to add in, since she was one of the Saints Joan of the Arc claimed to see and, if I remember correctly, I was confirmed that Joan of the Arc was one of the previous Ladybugs.<br/>*2 There’s no real reason why I added Marc in here, other than the fact that I wanted to.<br/>*3 Whether her having this mask means this fic exists in a world where Covid happened and it’s over now, or if this exists in a world where Covid never happens and she just has it for some reason is entirely up to you. I’ll try to make sure to not mention years because of this.<br/>*4 I’m not a huge fan of her canon appearance, so I redesigned it a bit to fit the older style princesses a bit, like it seems they’d been trying to do, while still keeping the original colors. {https://ladyblackshipper1987.tumblr.com/post/633259758800044032/i-dont-really-like-the-way-princess-fragrance} for anyone that wants to see what it’s supposed to look like.<br/>*5 I figured it would make a bit more sense for Tikki to tell Marinette that Fu worked with Miraculous users in the past so she wouldn’t have to do that stupid lie about Tikki being a cat.<br/>*6 The reason why I added the glow is because it made more sense to me than him basically just reading her energies and banging a gong.<br/>*7 Yes, I added those two in as the Ladybug and Chat Noir before Marinette and Adrien. Yes, they’re the nameless couple I’ve been adding in the whole time. Yes, they’re the same Ladybug and Chat Noir Tom and Sabine knew and were talking about in the first chapter. I was being cryptic about how she got hurt, other than Tom still blaming himself for it, because I haven’t fully decided how she got hurt, other than the fact that it’s the reason why she’s in the wheelchair now.<br/>*8 I wanted to change the name of the Snake Kwami, because I feel as if after the original Kwamis we were introduced to (ladybug, black cat, butterfly, turtle, peacock, fox, bee) the creators got kinda lazy with the naming. So I went with Lilith as a reference to one of the theorized identities of the Serpent of Eden. I’m not really religious, I just like the story behind her with how wild it is.</p><p> </p><p>Lady Wifi is next! I'll be changing her look a bit too, but like with this one I'll have the link to her new look in the notes somewhere.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>*1 This is something I did before, so I ended up cringing when I noticed how in the show she’d slept with her hair in pigtails. Figured I’d point out her mistake.<br/>*2 The lettering on the box is according to the transformation light/ball of light the Kwami is after the box is first opened.<br/>*3 Even before I found out that Plagg canonically had something to do with this one tragedy, I had this head canon that he’d been a part of it because of a bad user. Seriously, he’s the Kwami of Destruction. You can’t tell me that there isn’t at least ONE person that had decided to use his ring for evil. I may or may not say what the tragedy was in a chapter instead of an AN, but until I decide which one I’m going with, I’ll leave it up to you to decide what it was.<br/>*4 The reason why I’d only just now start calling Adrien Chat Noir while transformed is because of this being when he chose what he wants to be called. I’m going to be doing the same with Marinette/Ladybug.<br/>*5 This is why I didn’t have him use Cataclysm on the net. So he could have some time to himself while transformed before going home.<br/>*6 See note #3.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>